Masters of Fate
by atypical-swan
Summary: "We are still masters of our fate. We are still captains of our souls." Winston Churchill. Team Cardiff not only has to deal with the unstable rift and the consequences, but tragedy amongst themselves and finding the fate of the world in their hands. AU
1. Chapter 1

Title: Masters of Fate  
>Author: Missa<br>Fandom: Torchwood  
>Category: AU<br>Pairing: Jack/Ianto eventually  
>Disclaimer: Not mine. BBC and RTD get to make that claim.<p>

Additional Disclaimer: I'm not British, though I've done my best.  
>WarningsSpoilers: All of Season 1 Torchwood, end of Season 2 Dr Who. OC Character death. Un-beta'd.  
>Summary:<p>

"We are still masters of our fate. We are still captains of our souls." Winston Churchill.

Torchwood Cardiff starts to get strange readings from the rift that correspond with a new project being undertaken from London. Knowing only that the rift is becoming unstable, Jack tries to convince Yvonne to stop the project before she rips the world apart. Team Cardiff not only has to deal with the unstable rift and the consequences, but tragedy amongst themselves and finding the fate of the world in their hands.

Author's Note: this fic was originally published on my fiction live journal (mfic(dot)livejournal(dot)com) in the summer of 2007.

* * *

><p>Prologue:<p>

Ianto straightened his tie nervously before knocking on the doorframe of the Director's open door. He'd been waved by the assistant's desk, the young woman barely looking up, earning a frown from Ianto. "You wanted to see me, Director?" He'd only met the Director twice before, when he'd been hired, and when she'd come down to the Archives to personally check on some artifact.

"Mr Jones. Yes, please come in, have a seat." Yvonne Hartman sat behind her large oak desk, red hair set off by the severe black suit jacket. An open file folder sat in front of her, and Ianto caught a glimpse of his name as he stood in front of her desk.

Ianto took a seat in one of the chairs facing the Director's desk, hands folded neatly in his lap. His navy-blue pinstripe suit was immaculate, shoes perfectly shined.

"You've been with us for five years now, I believe," Yvonne began, glancing down at the folder. "Your supervisors speak highly of your work, especially some of the minor changes to the database that you've implemented that have made the search algorithms more efficient. You have been recommended for a promotion to Assistant Head of Archives next year, when Joseph Turner retires."

Ianto nodded. "Thank you." He knew about that recommendation, and had been ready to accept it, one of the youngest individuals to do so.

"So then, can I ask why you have put in a request to transfer to Cardiff?" She sat back in her seat, toying with a pen.

"My mother." Ianto cleared his throat quietly. "She's not well. I'd like to be closer." He had heard through the grapevine that Captain Harkness was looking for another team-member for the Cardiff area and he'd leapt at the chance. And after nearly ten years, he was tired of London, and there was little to tie him to the city, not since Russ - and with his mother's cancer diagnosis, he at least had a reason to request a transfer to Cardiff.

"Indeed. I'm sorry to hear that. Have you no other family?" The Director was tapping her pen thoughtfully against her chin.

"My sister is studying in America, and my brother is stationed abroad at present. Army," he said, anticipating her next question. His sister was also engaged and planning on settling in the US after earning her doctorate, and his brother was not likely to see home duty any time soon.

"Hm. Well," she said. "There is a position available. It won't quite be a lateral move, you understand," Yvonne said. "You'll be serving as Chief Archivist, which is a step up from your Assistant (II) Position here, but there will be other tasks involved as well, largely, serving as Harkness' Personal Assistant, which does not come with its own pay-grade." She smiled. "I will also require periodic reports as to the status of the Cardiff base."

Ianto nodded. The pay grade wasn't important. He wouldn't need much, anyway. He intended on moving in with his mother in Cardiff. "I understand, ma'am." The Director's opinion of Captain Harkness was well known, though Ianto only knew the man by reputation. He knew what she was asking of him – not to spy, not directly, but to supplement the Captain's own status reports with his own.

"Alright then." Yvonne stood and extended her hand to Ianto. "Congratulations on your promotion, Mr Jones. When can I tell them to expect you in Cardiff?"


	2. Chapter 2: Cardiff

Chapter 1: Cardiff

Ianto found himself easily settling into his position at Torchwood-3 in Cardiff. He did maintain their main Archives, which consisted of filing and keeping the inventory, but also sending a detailed monthly report of their contents back to the head office in London. He'd also taken over the coffee making duties after choking down the foul stuff that the others brewed. That, he'd soon found out, gave him job security over anything else he could or would do.

He rather enjoyed the much more relaxed atmosphere of the Cardiff branch, the freedom from having to wear a suit to the hub every day. His suits had been largely relegated to the back of his wardrobe, replaced by semi-casual trousers, jeans, jumpers and slightly-more casual shirts. With the rift a constant presence, Ianto didn't exactly maintain a regular schedule, but his mother was understanding and the Captain let him take the time he needed between crises, giving him the flexibility to see his mother to her treatments and be generally available to her.

The Captain wasn't quite what Ianto had expected from Yvonne's description and the general rumours he'd had of the man. Flamboyant, yes, and outrageously flirtatious, but Ianto found he was generally understanding, and he looked after his rather rag-tag team as best he could. Which included getting Ianto trained on various firearms and including him in the field missions when there wasn't anything (potentially) more dangerous than a Weevil.

Ianto had surprised himself with how well he'd managed to fit in and become a valued member of the team. He had helped Toshiko redesign the computer mainframe after an electrical storm had fried everything, proven to Owen that he had a more than rudimentary knowledge of emergency medicine (on more than one occasion), and helped Gwen connect the pieces in their various ongoing investigations. Jack had found him useful for tactical back-up in the situations where it wasn't necessary (read: safe) for Ianto to be deployed in the field, and they'd been quite a good team at disposals and cover-ups, with Jack's creativity and Ianto's attention to detail.

After a month in Cardiff, Ianto realized he was fairly happy, which he truly hadn't expected.

"Good morning, Captain," Ianto greeted his boss as he strode through the hub at 7:30. Early enough to get a start on the day before running out to take his mother to her chemo therapy and picking up the mail and morning tea while he was out.

Jack was sprawled on the couch tucked behind Tosh's workspace, tossing raw shrimp to the pterodactyl perched on a nearby railing. Braces hung down around his hips, charcoal trousers and blue shirt completing the Captain's standard uniform. "Ianto," Jack returned his greeting, lifting his bright blue eyes from the tub of raw seafood to Ianto's face. "How's your mom?"

"The doctors say she's responding well to the treatment, sir. Thanks for asking." He thumbed open the diary he'd retrieved from his desk in the front office, the faux tourist shop they maintained as a cover operation. "You have a call with Yvonne at 8:15," he reminded Jack.

Jack grimaced, tossing another shrimp in the air. "What does the old bat want this time?"

Ianto fought a grin at the description of his former boss. "She's getting ready to submit the budget requests, and wants to confirm the expense reports and our requests for the next fiscal year."

Jack brightened. "So, you should be talking to her then, instead of me!" he dropped the empty tub on the floor and bounced up off the couch.

Ianto fixed Jack with a look. "I'm not sure I can justify the expenses with a straight face, sir," he said dryly. One of the other tasks he'd taken on was much of the administrative paperwork that Jack let pile up. "I can't even begin to explain why we've gone through five cases of ultrasound gel in the last half-year, let alone why Owen insists on charging condoms to his expense account."

He almost laughed at the sheepish look on Jack's face. Ianto knew that the Captain only gave the expense reports a quick once-over before signing off on them.

"Right," Jack said, quickly recovering and flashing Ianto his bright, toothy grin. "I guess you're too pretty to throw to the wolves this early, anyway. I'll talk to Yvonne, just make sure that you have the reports handy for me to look at."

"Already done. Coffee?"

"Absolutely." Jack clapped Ianto on the back before stooping to pick up the empty tub he'd dropped and Ianto quickly averted his gaze, careful to not get caught admiring the way his boss' trousers pulled tight against his backside, leaving little doubt that the answer to 'boxers or briefs?' was 'neither.'

Ianto fled to the kitchen to start the coffee. He was comfortable with his sexuality, even if he didn't make a big thing of it, and he knew that Jack had no objections to lovers of either gender (or species, it seemed). They flirted, but Ianto wasn't sure he was ready for anything, be it a casual fling or anything more serious quite yet. It had been almost a year since Russ, and there was still a hollow place in his heart where his partner used to be. He suspected it would never truly be filled.

Still, he tried to convince himself. There was nothing wrong with admiring a gorgeous body. Just not at work, he told himself firmly, gathering the milk and sugar for Jack's cup. He poured both cups and carried them, the diary tucked neatly under his arm and against his body, to Jack's office so they could go over the rest of his day. He also had an email from one of his co-workers in London that was disconcerting. The Director was undertaking some kind of new project that was making people nervous, and Ianto thought Jack would want to know about it.

He was just settling into one of the chairs opposite Jack's desk when one of the proximity alarms sounded. It was going to be one of those days.

"Weevil," Jack said, rising. "Near one of the primary schools. Looks like it's you and me."

Ianto dialed his mobile with one hand, the other braced against the window of the SUV as Jack took a sharp turn at high speed. "Annaliese, it's Ianto," he spoke to Yvonne's latest assistant. "I need to reschedule that phone call for Jack. Weevil. Tomorrow would be fine. Thanks. You too." He was thrown against the door again as he rang off. He winced as his head connected with the window with a thud.

"Sorry," Jack muttered.

Ianto just shrugged and dialed again. He understood the urgency. Kids were easy pray for Weevils, and they needed to get there as soon as possible. "Hi, Mum," he said in Welsh. "I'm going to have to have Ellyn take you today. Something's come up at work. No, I'll call her. Love you, too." One more call and his mom had her transportation arranged for the day. He rang off with him mum's friend Ellyn just as Jack slammed them to a stop in front of the primary school.

He was thrown against the seatbelt, grunting a bit as it locked to keep him from hitting the dashboard. Ianto scrambled out after Jack, moving to the boot for weapons, anti-weevil spray, and hand-clamps while Jack used his wrist-band-thingy to scan the area. He tossed a canister of spray and a pair of clamps to Jack before tucking a handgun into his waistband and grabbing anti-weevil spray, a second pair of clamps for himself, and the tranquilizer gun.

The school grounds were quiet. Before they'd reached the vehicle in the Torchwood garage, Ianto had phoned ahead to the school, putting them on alert and asking them to put out a lockdown notice for the time being. Anyone on campus would be locked-down, those off campus would receive a text that they were not to approach the school grounds until an all clear was given. The system had been worked out in response to terrorist threats, but Ianto was glad for it all the same.

Ianto toggled his earpiece on as Jack gestured for him to go the opposite direction around one building. He crept along the wall, steadying his breathing and listening for anything.

_Ianto he' s coming around your way,_ Jack's voice came through his earpiece. _I'm right behind him._

At Jack's report he readied the spray, continuing his slow creep forward. He could hear the alien, clattering around the corner. Ianto steadied himself, sucking in a deep breath just as the weevil flew around the corner, panting and snarling.

He dodged a quick swipe of the creature's claws, getting off a blast of the anti-weevil spray that didn't seem to phase it at all. His second shot did, sending the weevil crashing to the ground with a wheezing whine, but not before catching Ianto across the belly. He winced and hissed as he leapt away from the animal as it collapsed, Jack rushing around the corner in pursuit, brandishing his own canister of spray.

Ianto helped Jack wrestle the writhing weevil down to the ground (the spray was incapacitating but painful), and shot a dart into the weevil's shoulder. It stopped struggling immediately as the tranquilizer took effect, allowing Jack to slap on the hand-clamps without risking being gutted. Ianto staggered back a step, blinking, as pain blossomed in his belly. He touched his stomach gently, frowning when his hand came away wet and streaked with red. His back hit the wall of the school building and he slid slowly to the ground.

"Ianto?" Jack looked up from the weevil. "Shit!" he leapt up, crossing to Ianto and kneeling at his side in a few long strides.

"I don't think the spray is working like it's supposed to, sir," Ianto said dryly, pressing his hand to his abdomen.

Jack snorted, prising Ianto's hand away. "Barely a scratch," Jack scoffed, probing gently at the three parallel slashes across his stomach before tearing long pieces off Ianto's ruined shirt.

"Tighter," Ianto said softly when Jack prepared to tie off the first of the makeshift bandages.

"It's going to hurt," Jack warned.

"Better pass out from pain than blood loss," Ianto managed a tight, wry smile.

"Your mother is going to kill me," Jack muttered as he did what he was told and tied the strips tighter.

Ianto gasped and probably went white, but he didn't faint.

"Owen?" Jack paged as he continued to tie off the strips. "Where are you? Good, stay there. We're on our way back in with a sedated weevil and a bleeding Archivist. Yes, he's talking me through it," Jack smiled at Ianto. "It's not like I haven't done emergency patch jobs before, Owen. 10 minutes, give or take. Fine." Jack tied off the last piece of Ianto's shirt, then struggled out of his coat and draped it over Ianto.

"Hang tight for just a minute," Jack said, cupping Ianto's cheek and looking into his eyes for a moment.

Ianto nodded tightly, breathing shallowly through the pain, but feeling less like he was bleeding to death. Jack dashed off and in a minute Ianto heard the SUV's engine roar to life and a heartbeat later (it seemed) it was slamming to a stop in front of him. The hatch over the boot lifted as Jack jumped out. The weevil was unceremoniously tossed into the boot, and Ianto found himself much more gently treated as Jack helped him stand and get him stretched out across the bench seat not surrounded by electronics.

He drifted on the short trip back to the hub, hearing Jack speak with Tosh to get the lockdown lifted at the school, but not really focusing on the words. Not until Owen's voice sounded in his ear.

_You dead yet?_

Ianto couldn't help but smile. Most days, Owen reminded him of Russ, in a good way, the same irreverent sense of humour and attitude towards their work and patients. Russ had been adored on the pediatric ward, because he hadn't treated his kids like kids, not sugar coating anything for them.

"'M still here," Ianto responded. He could feel blood seeping through the tight bandages on his stomach. "Bleeding."

_Yeah, there's some kind of anticoagulant in the weevil secretions. Can you put any more pressure on the wounds?_

Ianto grunted an affirmative, pressing his hand to his stomach as hard as he dared. He exhaled shakily, the wool of Jack's coat itchy against his bare chest, blood seeping into the heavy fabric. He hoped they had a good dry-cleaner to remove the stains.

He felt the vehicle come to a gentler stop than Ianto had ever experienced with Jack driving, and then hands carefully tugging him off the seat, onto something harder, colder. Ianto saw Owen's face blearily over him, felt a prick in his elbow, and faded into blessed darkness.

Consciousness returned gradually. Ianto heard familiar voices drifting around him, felt the tug of an i.v. line in his arm and the pleasant buzz of painkillers in his system. He floated for a while, listening to Tosh and Owen argue the merits of some video game or another, Gwen and Jack's laughter providing a nice counter-melody. He stirred a bit when he heard his phone ring nearby, the ringtone identifying his mother. He struggled towards consciousness.

"Hello, Ianto Jones' phone." Gwen answered his phone and he relaxed a bit, eyes fluttering open as she slid easily into Welsh (his mum did speak English, but she was often so tired from the chemo that she slipped back into her native tongue without realizing it). "Oh, no, he's okay," Gwen was saying. "Just a bit of an incident, is all."

Ianto looked around. Gwen was standing next to him, looking up at Jack on the catwalk above. Owen had seated himself on one of the steps leading into the autopsy bay/operating theatre and Tosh was leaned against the wall near him. He met Jack's gaze and was greeted with a bright grin and a nod, which sent Gwen spinning around to look down at him. He returned her smile tiredly. He shook his head slightly, not up to talking to his mum at the moment.

"No, no problem," Gwen said, patting his arm. "Hold on, just a tic." She covered the receiver of the phone. "Your mum's friend Ellyn had some kind of emergency. She needs a ride home."

"Uhm," Ianto tried to prod his brain into gear and remember who would be available. Normally, he'd pick her up and make the lunch run while he was out.

"I can do it," Jack spoke up. "Figure out what you want for lunch and I'll pick it up after I see Mrs Jones home. Gwen, why don't you come with me?"

Ianto nodded, digging up another exhausted smile. "Thanks," he said softly, letting his eyes close again.

"Mrs Jones, Captain Harkness and I will come get you, how about that? Oh, no it's really no trouble at all. We may even persuade the good Captain into a trip to the shops, if there's anything you need," she said, still speaking in Welsh.

Ianto chuffed a laugh. Gwen and his mother would get along well.

"Okay. We'll be there in a bit, then." Gwen snapped his phone closed. "Your mother is a doll."

"A doll who is going to kick my ass," Jack said. Ianto could hear the laughter in his voice. "How much do you want me to tell her?"

"The truth," he said, cracking his eyes open once more. "She understands."

"What?" Gwen looked back and forth between them, gaping, before Ianto chuckled tiredly and took pity on her.

"My mother has a higher security clearance than I do," he explained, taking stock of his body and deciding he could try to sit up. "She was with UNIT. Civilian consultant." He pushed himself up on his elbows.

"Don't even think about it," Owen scolded, approaching. "You'll rip out my stitches."

Ianto sighed, but relaxed back down on the table. "Anyway," he said to Gwen. "If you need someone to talk to, I'm sure she'd be willing to listen." Torchwood Cardiff was a close knit group, and Gwen actually managed to hold down something of a normal life, but he'd seen people in London self-destruct from not having anyone to talk to about the things they'd seen. He'd noticed Gwen struggling with that a bit, keeping her two lives balanced, unable to speak to her fiancée about her work, though Tosh seemed captivated by the wedding plans Gwen had a tendency to go on about. Ianto knew his mother missed aspects of her professional life, and would relish the chance to live vicariously through someone else.

Gwen bent and kissed his cheek. "Thanks," she whispered, squeezing his forearm again before skipping off to find her bag and jacket.

Ianto turned his attention to Jack.

"You sure you want to team them up like that?" he asked, a glint of mischief in his eyes.

"It was your idea to take Gwen with you. Besides, I think they'll be good for each other," Ianto answered. With his sister gone and a lack of female friends in his mum's life, he sometimes worried about her lack of general companionship. "Anyway," he grinned. "maybe it will take some of her attention off me for awhile."

Jack laughed.

The Captain had worked with Ianto's mum after Ianto had left for University. He hadn't realized before he'd transferred to Cardiff that the stories he'd had about Captain Harkness from his mother were _this_Captain Harkness.

"Alright," Owen grumped. "Go fetch lunch, would you? I'm starved." He waved Jack off and proceeded to lift the blanket covering Ianto's lower body.

The painkillers were still working. Ianto could feel Owen press around his wounds, but it didn't hurt.

"The cuts weren't deep," Owen said, "and they look to heal clean. You're on light duty until the stitches come out and you're going to bruise fairly easily for the next few days until the anti-coagulant works it's way out of your system, so be careful. No heavy lifting, no bending over to pick things up, nothing strenuous. Stay out of the pool, and keep the stitches covered when you wash."

"I know." Ianto let Owen help him move slowly to sit up, blanket pooling around his waist. He grinned at the catcall from the catwalk, Jack crossing over.

"Lunch orders?"

"Burgers and chips?" Owen suggested.

"We just had that," Tosh said, coming around the corner with a bundle of clothes. "How about Thai?" she dropped the bundle on the end of the table.

Owen nodded. "Gwen, Thai good for you?" he shouted. He shrugged at the inaudible response. "Sounds like Thai."

"What about Ianto's vote?" Tosh asked, setting down Ianto's spare shoes.

"Ianto's a human garbage disposer and doesn't get a vote," Owen said with a smirk.

Ianto shrugged. It was a fairly accurate description of his eating habits. "I'm not much hungry anyway, Tosh. But thanks."He rooted through the pile of clothes he realized were from his locker. Pants, jeans, tee-shirt and hoodie. Not what he'd normally wear to work, but at least it'd be comfortable. He slipped into the t-shirt while the others were placing their requests for lunch. A little stiff, it was difficult slipping into the pants and jeans himself, but he'd lost a lot of his modesty doing theatre in secondary school where tight spaces and quick changes had reinforced the idea of 'needs must.'

Jack was looking at him curiously when Ianto looked up. Ianto quirked an eyebrow, causing Jack to grin. "Lunch, Ianto?"

"Pad thai," Ianto stated. He could always take leftovers home for dinner. His mother wasn't eating much.

"Okay. We'll be back," Jack called over his shoulder. "Try not to destroy Cardiff while I'm gone!"

"Who is going to keep him from destroying it?" Tosh asked quietly with a wink, helping Ianto into his socks and hiking boots. He was going to need to dig out his loafers for the time being.

Ianto laughed.

"Hi, Marian," Jack greeted Mrs Jones, stooping to kiss her cheek. He gave her a quick once over, finding her gaunt and tired looking, a brightly colored scarf tied around her head that complemented the simple skirt and top combination she wore. "You're looking well."Her blue eyes still sparkled a bit, and there was no mistaking Ianto's lineage with those cheekbones.

"Liar," said with a smile. "But thank you. You haven't changed, I see."

Jack winked. He'd known Marian Jones since they'd worked together on a few projects in the late nineties. She'd seen him come back to life more than once, and he'd been right to trust her with that secret.

"Marian, I want you to meet Gwen Cooper. You spoke earlier," Jack indicated Gwen, standing next to him and smiling brightly. He understood Ianto's desire for them to meet. There was a lot of Marian in Gwen.

"Why don't you let us chat for a minute, dear boy, and go fetch me a wheelchair," Marian said with a grin, patting the chair next to her for Gwen.

"Yes, Ma'am," Jack answered cheekily. He ambled off towards the nurses' station, giving them both a few minutes to talk. He was sure Marian was pumping Gwen for information about Ianto and/or himself.

He hadn't met Marian until he'd been coordinating some rescue or other with UNIT and she'd been called in as a senior advisor. Her husband had recently passed away, her kids were all out of the house, and she was living through her work, something Jack desperately understood. They'd become easy companions, though Jack regretted not being able to spend more time with her. He had known of Ianto long before he'd met him, had known that he'd lost his partner. When he'd decided that his team needed a fifth member, he'd tried to see that word of it reached Ianto, indirectly, for Marian's sake, but also because he was quite intrigued by the young man.

So far, it seemed to be working out. He hadn't expected Ianto to fit in as easily as he had, but he'd slipped right in to the workings of the team and everyone truly seemed to get along with him. Jack also hadn't expected to be as attracted to the young Welsh native as he was, but there was at least some hint that the attraction was returned. Remembering that Ianto had recently lost his partner of six years, Jack was trying to reign in his more outgoing side and let things happen fairly naturally.

He was really glad Ianto hadn't insisted on wearing a suit every day. He wasn't sure his self-control would have extended quite so far.

Jack talked a nurse out of a wheelchair and made his way back to the ladies. They were talking softly, Gwen's dark hair tucked behind her ears and a wide grin on her face. She looked up at Jack's approach and burst out laughing. Jack pouted. They had definitely been talking about him.

"Your chariot, my lady," he sketched a bow. He held the chair while Gwen helped Marian stand and walk the few steps to the chair.

They'd gone a few paces before Marian spoke up. "So, Captain. When are you going to tell me what really happened to my youngest son?"

He dropped a kiss to the top of her head. "We had a Weevil loose at one of the primary schools this morning. He took a swipe across the belly. He's okay. Owen patched him up and he was up and moving when we left to come get you."

"He's a stubborn one, Jack," Marian warned.

"I wonder where he gets that from, then?" he teased. "I'll keep an eye on him," he said lightly.

Marian said something in Welsh that set Gwen giggling again. Jack smiled.

Gwen and Marian had chatted the whole drive back to the Jones' residence, mostly in Welsh, leaving Jack along with his thoughts. Not for the first time,  
>Jack cursed medicine of the twenty-first century as woefully inadequate as he watched them in the mirror. Marian was keeping up her end of the conversation, but she was visibly drooping. She may have been responding well to the treatments, but Jack knew that the treatments often weren't any better than the disease. Ianto had faith, however, in the doctor's prognosis, and Jack could only hope that he was right to believe in them.<p>

Jack and Gwen saw Marian inside, Jack getting her settled in the loveseat placed near the window while Gwen put on a pot of tea. While the water came to a boil, Gwen wandered around the common room, gazing at the pictures of Marian and her family, picking up one of a smiling Ianto and another young man dressed in surgical scrubs. Jack managed to catch her eye and shake his head a little bit, and she placed a photo back on the mantel.

"Are you sure we can't get you anything else?" Gwen asked, setting a cuppa at Marian's elbow.

"No, my dear, thank you. You've done plenty. I'm just going to doze off here for a bit." She reached for Gwen's hand. "When I'm up and around a bit better, you and I need to have tea." She winked, a bit of her old sparkle returning.

"I would like that," Gwen answered, squeezing her hand gently.

Jack bent and kissed her cheek again.

"And you," Marian said. "You just stay out of trouble."

He tried to look innocent but Gwen just burst out laughing again. "I'll try."

"I'm going to go call ahead for lunch. Marian, it was very nice to meet you."

"You too, my dear." Marian smiled at Gwen and Jack silently praised her intuitiveness. "Ianto doesn't talk about him, does he?" she asked. "Russ."

"No," Jack answered, realizing Marian had seen Gwen with the photo. "He's very good about turning questions about his personal life back on everyone else, and no one forces it. Gwen might press a little, now," he admitted."But she's sensitive enough to know when to call it quits."

"She's a sweet girl," Marian agreed. "I'm happy he's fitting in here. It's been a rough year for him."

"Don't worry. We'll look after him," Jack said, knowing what Marian was trying to get at. They were a close bunch, the Cardiff branch of Torchwood, and very good at looking after their own.

She nodded. "You'd better go fetch lunch before you face a mutiny, Captain."

Jack laughed. "Yes ma'am."

"Mum?" Ianto called as he let himself in. He tossed his keys onto the table inside the hall. "I'm home!" He went through to the kitchen, sticking his barely-eaten lunch into the fridge and putting the kettle on to boil. He was tired and stiff, the stitched wounds beginning to ache as the painkillers wore off.

The afternoon had proceeded more or less as normal, trying to keep Jack on schedule for another conference call (UNIT) and getting him to do some of the paperwork that overdue to London. Ianto got the feeling Jack was being difficult on purpose, to keep Ianto more or less in his office, rather than up and around trying to defy Owen's orders by shifting boxes in the Archives.

They'd also found time to look at the report Ianto had received from London. Jack had been interested, but only so far as to ask Ianto to keep forwarding along similar reports. And to keep maintaining those contacts at Torchwood-1.

He found a bottle of ibuprofen in one of the kitchen cupboards and swallowed two pills dry. He wanted out of his boots, and into a hot shower, right after a cup of tea and chat with his mother.

"Mum?" he called again. He wandered out in the common room and smiled fondly, finding her dozing in what had become her favorite seat. She'd changed her clothes since the morning, into loose pants and long sleeved top, and discarded the scarves she used to cover her head in public.

Ianto retrieved her empty cup and went back into the kitchen, thankful that his mother had at last purchased an electric kettle so there was no shrieking whistle piercing the easy silence of the house. He methodically fixed two cups of tea, milk and one sugar for himself, two sugars for his mom.  
>He switched off the light with his elbow, carrying the two cups back to the lounge. He placed his mum's back at her elbow on the table and carried his to the couch, settling down with a quiet grunt before reaching for the television remote and switching on the news, quickly thumbing the volume down. Ianto listened idly, sipping his tea and contemplating how to get his boots off and whether or not there was any plastic film in the house.<p>

"How was your day, love?" his mum asked.

He chuckled. "Oh, I've had better. Course, I've also had worse. How're you feeling?"

"I had a wonderful day. That Gwen Cooper is a sweet girl. I've invited her around for tea when I'm up and around a bit better. And it's always nice to see the Captain. I even got a bit of work done out in the garden this afternoon."

Ianto noticed her subtle dodge of the question but let it go. "That's great. Gwen was quite taken with you, as well." It seemed that he and Jack were of similar mind that Gwen and his mother would have hit it off. Ianto made a mental note to foster that relationship. "Have you heard from Toshiko lately?"

"Oh, yes," she said. "There was an email last week."

Tosh had been acquainted with his mum from her time with UNIT, and they kept in touch a bit, mostly in regards to new scientific developments that Tosh thought his mum might be interested in, but they also shared knitting patterns and gardening tips.

"Good." Ianto stifled a grunt as he lifted his feet to the coffee table, reducing the distance he had to bend to untie his laces.

"Ianto Jones, remove your feet from that table," his mum scolded.

"How else am I supposed to get my boots off?" he grumbled, but did as he was told.

"You could ask for help, silly boy." She rose from her chair and crossed to him, easing herself to the floor despite Ianto's spluttering protests. "How many stitches?" she asked, setting to work on the knots Tosh had put into his laces so they wouldn't come undone.

"Owen didn't say," Ianto replied. "It's not as bad as it looks," he said hurriedly, hoping to prevent her from actually lifting his shirt and looking. He'd had a look at the hub, and it was an ugly mess of dark bruises and stitches, thankfully small so the scarring would hopefully be minimal. "He'll be feeding me antibiotics for the next ten days and restricted me to light duty."

"Good to know one of you boys has some sense," she teased

"It's not like I _wanted_to be attacked by a Weevil this morning," he groused, earning a light laugh. "It wasn't exactly on the schedule for the day, though Jack's relieved he got out of a budget meeting with Yvonne."

"Sounds like Jack," his mum said, tugging free one of his shoes, followed by the sock. "I talked to him today."

"Yeah?" Somehow, he was sure he didn't like the sound of that. "About what?"

"He says you don't talk about yourself. That you're very good at turning personal questions back on everyone else," she said. "You don't talk about Russ."

Ianto let his head come to rest against the back of the couch. "Yeah," he said quietly. "It's just -" he took a breath. "They never knew him, and it's hard to talk about him to people that have no idea who he was. It's not that I don't want to share that part of my life with them, I just don't know how. And it's coming up on the anniversary, and some days it just hurts so fucking much that he's gone."

"I know it does, love." His mom patted his knee comfortingly, thankfully overlooking the cursing. " I remember when your father died. It does get better, when not everything reminds you of him, and you remember the good times."

"That's part of why I asked to transfer down here," Ianto admitted. "To get away from London and everything that just exuded Russ. It was stifling, seeing him everywhere I went, remembering all the places we used to go. It just hurt too much."

"And here I thought you moved home just for me," his mum said lightly, tugging free the other shoe and sock.

Ianto sat up slowly and kissed the top of his mum's head. "Mostly for you," he said softly. "Now, how are you going to get up? I've been banned from heavy lifting," he teased. She'd lost significant weight since the diagnosis and treatment, and she'd never been a large woman.

"Oi, you." His mom thwacked him lightly on the leg. "I can get myself up. You go get cleaned up and I"ll order takeway for dinner."

"No need," he said, pushing himself up carefully. "There's leftover pad thai in the fridge."

"Okay. Go on."

Ianto did as he was ordered, looking back from the hallway and watching his mum use the coffee table and couch as crutches to lever herself up off the floor. He hadn't necessarily needed to move home, he reflected as he slowly mounted the stairs to his room (after a detour to the kitchen for film to cover the stitches) and the shower. His mother was a strong woman who likely would have been able to look after herself. But he felt better being useful and available to her, and London held too many memories, good, bad, and bittersweet for him anymore.

He sagged against the bathroom door for a moment. The anniversary of Russ' death was a week away, and even before he'd transferred out of London, he'd never intended to be in town on that date. On the day his partner of six years had been killed in a car accident, senselessly taken from Ianto by a drunk driver, ripped away from his patients in the middle of the day as he'd stolen away from work for his lunch to see Ianto, home with the flu.

Two deep, shuddering breaths held the tears back. It had taken Ianto months to get over the guilt that had practically consumed him. He'd returned to work sooner than anyone had expected him to, needing to do something, anything, than sit around their flat and let guilt and memories consume him. Slowly he got back to his life, to pub quiz with Lisa and the gang from accounting, and the hospital rugby team that he and Russ had played on. It took him months to realize it wasn't his fault, that he'd had no control over the events, and that Russ wouldn't have wanted him to keep beating himself up over it.

And then his mother received the diagnosis of cancer and word of the open position in Cardiff had reached him. It seemed as if he had received a pretty clear sign of how he could truly respect Russ' memory and continue on with his life, by being available for his mom and escaping the crush of the city that held too many people, too many memories.

As he'd reflected that morning, Ianto again realized, turning on the taps to the shower, that for the first time in nearly a year, he was happy. He had friends, he was with his mom. He had a job that he enjoyed and was good at, and if he didn't have a partner or lover, that was okay. He wasn't alone, and that was what mattered.


	3. Chapter 3: The Anniversary

Chapter 2: The Anniversary

Jack was well aware of the date on his blotter - if Ianto chose to make no mention of it, Jack certainly wasn't going to.

They gathered in the conference room for the morning briefing, mid-week status reports and coffee, Ianto having returned to the hub with fresh bagels and red rimmed eyes.

"Good morning, sir," Ianto said quietly, delivering a steaming mug to his elbow. His long sleeved button-up was tucked neatly into a pair of casual trousers, the top three buttons unfastened revealing a coordinating t-shirt underneath. The sleeves concealed sleekly toned arms, Jack knew, having watched Ianto shift boxes in the Archives in just his t-shirt often enough.

"Ianto." Jack said, meeting the younger man's blue-grey gaze. Ianto held it for a moment then nodded slightly, seemingly understanding Jack's unspoken statement, that he understood, and that Ianto could take the time if he needed it. "No donuts today?"

"No, sir," Ianto said, a hint of mischief replacing the look of sadness in his eyes. "I think you're quite hyper enough with the sugar in your coffee."

"Me?" Jack forced a look of innocence which sent Tosh spluttering.

"Yes, sir," Ianto said, completely deadpan, turning away to deliver Tosh and Owen their morning coffee and tea for Gwen and himself. Ianto took his seat at Jack's right, clutching tightly at his mug.

"Okay, what've we got?" Jack directed his question at Gwen.

"There's been a rise in deaths among the homeless population around the area. The locals have it down to a spike in current drug activity, but I think they're just covering up for the increase in Weevil activity we've seen recently. I've asked for a few of the case files to review and we can proceed from there," Gwen said.

"I can add a new filter to the report monitor," Ianto said quietly. "It may allow us to screen the reports a bit closer."

"Good. Do it," Jack said. In between updating their Archives, Ianto had proven himself useful in a number of other tasks, including database programming (which only made sense given some of his commendations from London), and an extreme eye to detail. "I think we already know the Weevils are getting bolder," he said, referencing the hunt from last week that left Ianto, literally, in stitches. "But we need to figure out how to track them better."

"I ran some tests after last week," Owen said. "It appears that the spray is becoming less effective on the Weevils. I don't know if they're adapting or mutating, or simply becoming resistant. I've got some samples I'm sending up to London for more detailed genetic testing."

"What's your hunch?" he asked around a mouthful of bagel.

"We've got more Weevils, but no sign of baby Weevils," Owen said, tugging on one of the sleeves of his lab coat. "We haven't done any kind of genetic study to trace families or clans or anything, and it might help us figure out why they're becoming resistant to the spray. It could be a genetic adaptation like how human viruses become resistant to antibiotics over time, thanks to the presence of it in milk, etc. There could be some kind of environmental adaptation taking place as well. I've sent random samples going back 10 years to London."

"Good idea. And I'm still waiting on that backlog of autopsy reports," Jack reminded Owen with a smirk. "Tosh?"

"I've been monitoring rift activity lately," she said. "Something is happening, but I'm not sure what."

"What kind of activity?" Jack asked, sitting forward in his chair.

Tosh frowned and typed a few keystrokes. "Just – an increase. In presence?" She looked up. "I'm not sure what it means yet."

"Could the new project in London be affecting it?" Ianto asked softly. "I don't have any details yet, but whatever they've got started, it's making people uncomfortable."

Jack shrugged. "We'll keep monitoring it. Tosh, keep doing whatever your doing to try interpret what you're getting from the Rift. Ianto, keep those lines of communication open. I'll see if I can't get something out of Yvonne the next time she calls and see what it is they're up to."

They nodded. "Tosh, what else?"

A slide appeared on the monitor. "Last night, UNIT recovered a meteor that had fallen on the outskirts of the city." Tosh changed the slide again. "When they attempted to remove samples, a gaseous cloud escaped from within the meteor and the UNIT crew was unable to contain it."

"Why am I not surprised," Owen muttered.

"There have been reports from all over Cardiff of men gone missing, and in several pubs mysterious piles of ash were recovered." Tosh flipped the slide again. "UNIT has asked for our assistance in the investigation. All their preliminary reports are on the way and should be –" her computer 'binged' receipt of an email. "here."

"Gwen, why don't you start trying to pull together a profile of our victims. Ianto should be able to help you out gathering any information you don't have access to," Jack said, pointing. "Ianto, check the Archives for anything that sounds remotely related and start combing through the CCTV footage for any of the missing people or victims. Tosh and Owen, go grab yourselves some samples to study. And remember to play nice with the UNIT boys, both of you."

He got a murmur of agreement around the room and everyone was standing, gathering their files that they didn't get to in light of a more pressing case. Jack would need to talk to Toshiko about setting up a better monitor on the rift.

"Let's plan on coming back here this afternoon," he said. "I do want to review the other outstanding cases, but right now, this takes priority. I'll update London and coordinate with Cardiff's finest."

Owen and Tosh headed for the garage, arguing over who was going to drive. Gwen took up her station, a rather neat desk, one side of which was made up of a large glass partition which she used to lay out her cases and profiles or take notes with a dry-erase marker.

Ianto followed her and they said a few words, Jack unable to hear them from the vantage of his office. Ianto gave a slight shake of the head and Gwen placed her hand lightly on his arm, getting a small smile in return before Ianto stepped away and headed down toward the Archives.  
>Jack dashed off a quick email to Yvonne Hartman, promising a more detailed report when things were a bit more clear. With that, he turned to the feed they received from the local police, searching the calls for the last twenty-four hours for any sense of a pattern.<p>

Ianto emerged from the Archives after a couple of hours, just long enough to retrieve his iPod from his desk in the tourist center and to offer a round of coffee and tea to Gwen and Jack.

"Coffee would be fantastic, Ianto, thank you. What time do you need to pick up your mom today?"

"I don't, sir," Ianto said. "She's got a lunch date with her friend Ellyn. I'll get that coffee."

"Thanks." Jack turned away to answer his phone, which turned out to be Tosh and Owen, stuck in UNIT red tape and unable to get the samples that were to be released to them. He nodded his thanks to Ianto when he delivered a steaming cup of coffee and a pastry he'd unearthed from somewhere, busy on the line with UNIT staffers who wanted Torchwood's help but didn't want to give them the means.

It was nearly an hour before Jack was able to get Tosh and Owen what they needed and headed back to the hub, with orders to pick up lunch on their way back. He turned his attention to a pile of paperwork that had been neglected on his desk - research was really his team's forte, and they knew he was useless at it. Give him something to do and Jack would run headlong into it, but ask him to sit back and sift through stuff and he'd just cause more work than to give it to the team to do in the first place.

Gwen's profile board was filling up as she got information from the local police as to the missing men. She had eight photos lined up across the top of her board, details beginning to form a matrix beneath them.

"Well," she said, sitting back in her chair cradling a cup of coffee and looking at her board. "I've got eight missing young men and eight piles of dust left behind at local pubs. We'll need the CCTV footage to confirm, but I'm willing to bet they'll all line up."

"You're probably right. Good work. Let's get Ianto up here to start picking out the CCTV footage." Jack squeezed Gwen's shoulder lightly. "Then maybe Owen and Tosh will get back here at some point and we can figure out what's going on." He turned to make his way to the Archives as Gwen's computer indicated something new on the police feed.

"If they haven't killed each other by now in deciding who's driving home," Gwen said with a smirk, spinning around to her terminal to print the new alert.

"Tosh just does it to wind Owen up. She doesn't even drive. Well," he mused as the printer whirred to life behind him. "She can, I suppose, but she doesn't actually own a car."

He turned back at Gwen's gasp and the sound of ceramic shattering on metal. "Gwen?"

She'd gone pale, hands trembling as she handed over the print out. Jack gently took one of her hands in his as he took it.

_Head on collision reported at 13:34. Emergency personnel responded arrived onsite 13:37. Two DOA one critical one stable to Royal Infirmary. ID confirmed: Marian Jones, Ellyn Watson, John Goodwin, Sallie Goodwin._

"Call your contact," Jack said softly. "See if you can confirm the identities of the DOAs." A lead weight settled in his stomach. Of all days. Jack had long lost any faith he may have once possessed, but he cursed whatever deity might listen that Ianto would have to experience this day again. That a year to the day that Ianto had lost his partner, he would now have to face the possibility of the loss of his mother as well.

"Ianto-" Gwen started. She didn't know the half of it.

"Call Andy, Gwen," Jack said, squeezing her hand. "We don't know anything, yet." Other than his day had gone remarkably downhill quickly.

He stepped away as Gwen drew in a shuddering breath, steadying herself before picking up her phone to call her old partner, Andy. Jack quickly made his way down to the Archives, finding the door ajar. He paused on the threshold, barely realizing that he still held the print out in his hand.

"Ianto," Jack said, stepping into the Archives. The room was cool and brightly lit, a hardwired, dedicated terminal dominating the small inter-space, a heavy secured door leading into the Archives proper. Ianto's iPod sat off to one side, near a half-consumed mug of tea. Jack couldn't help but notice the tension writ across Ianto's back or the slight shake to his hands, the effort the young man was expending to simply carry on as normal when if it was Jack, he would want to have pulled the duvet over his head and not faced the world.

There was more to his Archivist than it seemed - he was stronger than even Jack had been willing to credit. But then, Marian had said he was stubborn.

Marian.

"I'm sorry I haven't gotten to this quicker, Captain," Ianto said, not looking up. "The Archives database hasn't been cross-referenced yet."

"Ianto," Jack started. He sighed, again cursing any deity willing to listen that he had to be the one to break this poor boy's heart again.

Ianto finally looked up.

"There's been an accident."

It had taken most of Ianto's will to pull himself out of bed in the morning. He'd woken with a headache and a heavy weight on his chest as he recalled the date. His sense of duty was stronger than his own self pity, so he dragged himself to the shower and let the water wash away the only tears he wanted to allow himself as he remembered.

It wasn't until he reached the hub that Ianto realized he wished he had said something about Russ. Not for the sympathy or compassion he'd receive from Gwen and Tosh, or the knowing looks from Jack and Owen, but to have people with whom he could remember and celebrate the memory.

Perhaps Jack, he thought. He knew the Captain knew of Russ - his mum had loved Russ as her third son and had bragged of him almost as much as Ianto and his brother Tristan and his sister Rhian. Maybe Jack would have time for a quiet drink, Ianto thought.

The hub was quiet when he arrived, no sign of Jack yet that morning. He checked his email, smiling to find a light message from Lisa with the latest gossip from London and a gentle admonition for him to email or call her more often. He made a note to call her when he got home. She and Russ has been close friends since school and Ianto had been drawn into their path at Uni. He missed her easy laugh and outgoing spirit. Perhaps he'd go to London, the next time he had some time off. After his mum was feeling better.

Ianto spent his first quiet hours in the Archives, hoping to lose himself in the cross referencing pattern he'd been working on since arriving in Cardiff. But he couldn't seem to focus, every little thing bringing up memories of Russ, whether related or no. He finally just gave up and sent Jack a text that he'd be back with breakfast after delivering his mum to treatment.

Only his mum had already arranged the day with Ellyn, planning a girls' day out as if it were any other day. He had silently blessed her when she'd reminded him on his way out that morning, for her thoughtfulness. Ianto took himself out to the bay for the forty-five minutes he normally spent driving. He didn't like lying to Jack, but he had a feeling the other man would understand. Ianto knew something of Jack, at any rate, from the Torchwood 1 Archives, his mum, and his current task of cleaning up the Torchwood 3 Archives. Captain Harkness had been around a long time.

Ianto stared out across the bay, idly toying with the silver ring on his left ring finger. He didn't consider himself a religious man, having seen too much at Torchwood 1 that had jaded him. He wasn't sure he believed that anyone would listen, that Russ was in heaven looking down on him, but he spoke softly out over the water nonetheless.

"I miss you," he said softly to the clear blue sky and the incoming tide. "I think you might have loved Cardiff. It's not London, sure, but I think you would've been happy at St. David's or Cardiff Royal. I hear the St. David's team is virtually undefeated." He laughed softly, thinking fondly of the rugby team they'd played on for Russ' hospital in London.

"Mum would have liked to have you around. I know I do. I could use your help with her some days. I know she's not telling me everything and I'm terrified I'm going to lose her too.

"I wish you could meet this Torchwood, Russ. You and Owen would have been mates, I'm sure. He's so much like you in so many ways, giving off a gruff impression while caring about his patients. I know the girls would love you, Tosh because you're as big a nerd as she is, and Gwen because she loves just about everyone. They accepted me easily enough. And Jack - well, best you don't meet Jack," he said, smiling. "You'd like him, though."

"I like him," he confessed softly. "I feel guilty about it, like I'm betraying you by admitting I'm attracted to him. I know you'd tell me to stop it - hell, you'd invite him to join us. But I can't help but feel - I don't know what I feel." He sighed.

"I miss you, so, so much," he said again, feeling tears prick at his eyes and he didn't bother to blink them away. "I feel like there's so many things to say, but I can't find the words. I don't feel like I ever said it enough, but I love you. I wish we had the time to do everything we planned. You would've made a fantastic father, and I will always regret not taking you seriously about wanting kids, about asking Lisa to be a surrogate for us. To have a piece of you left, to have someone to remember you with -" he trailed off. "My world isn't the same without you."

A nearby clock sounded the time, startling Ianto. "I-I have to go," he murmured, swiping the tears from his cheeks. "I do love you, Russ. I will forever. I miss you beyond the telling of it. I love you," he said one last time, feeling a bit of weight lift from his chest, a tiny bit of the black cloud of depression he'd woken under thin out. He closed his eyes as a breeze ruffled his hair, finding his balance again before seeking out bagels for the morning briefing.

After the briefing he followed Gwen to her station to coordinate their searches.

"Are you okay, Ianto? You look a little out of sorts." Gwen looked at him, large brown eyes warm and genuinely concerned.

"Just a bit of a headache," he said, shaking his head. "I'll be fine."

"Okay." She patted his arm with a smile. "Say hi to your mum for me. I'll try to give her a call my next day off."

He found a smile for her. "I will. I'll be in the Archives."

Ianto worked for a couple of hours, manually cross referencing and indexing the Archives, emerging once for his iPod and to make coffee before disappearing back downstairs with a mug of tea.

He found after a few tracks he was getting distracted again and pulled the ear-buds from his ears and set them aside, going back to combing the Archives for references to any gas, dust, meteors, and missing people. Unfortunately, Ianto hadn't had a chance to finish updating and cross-referencing the Archive's database, so the search was slow and frustrating. But he managed to lose himself in the search for a time, his tea growing cold and finding that when he next looked at the clock, nearly two hours had passed.

As he turned back to his terminal, he heard the familiar tread of the Captain's footsteps echoing down the hallway leading to the Archives. Ianto didn't look up when the footsteps stopped.

"Ianto," Jack said, stepping into the Archives.

"I'm sorry I haven't gotten to this quicker, Captain," Ianto said, still working on coercing the database into one more complex algorithm. "The Archives database hasn't been cross-referenced yet."

"Ianto," Jack said again, then sighed, prompting Ianto to look up. He barely had time to take in the look on Jack's face, trying to determine if it was sadness or something more when the Captain spoke again. "There's been an accident."

Suddenly he couldn't breathe as he flashbacked to a year ago, to Lisa arriving at their flat, telling him that there had been a wreck, that Russ was dead. To those first fevered dizzying moments where Ianto had been convinced he was delirious and it was all a nightmare that he would wake up from. The sudden crushing despair that had settled on him when he'd realized that Lisa's beautiful face was tear-stained, that the woman Russ wanted to ask to carry their child was truly there in front of him telling him is partner of six years was suddenly gone. The man he'd been too ill to do more than grunt a good-bye to that morning.

Ianto felt as if the Archives had been suddenly exposed to a vacuum and all the air blown out. He clawed at his collar, already open, unable to breathe, a full blown panic attack settling in. This couldn't be happening again. The room swam dizzyingly around him and he closed his eyes, gasping for breath, hearing nothing beyond the rush of blood in his ears, feeling nothing but the too-fast beating of his heart against his ribcage under the painful crushing weight of his heart breaking a second time.

He had no idea how much time passed, slowly becoming aware of voices around him, of a warm heavy hand on the back of his neck, another clasped around his wrists. The floor was cold against his legs through the thin cotton of his trousers and he could breathe again.

"That's it, slow breaths, Ianto," Jack was saying softly. "Just breathe."

He did that for a few moments, getting himself back under control. His throat hurt and his head was pounding and he focused on the feeling of Jack's chest, warm against his side and his hand at the base of his neck, gently rubbing small circles into the tight knot that had formed there. He had no idea how he'd ended up on the floor.

"I'm sorry," Ianto said after a moment.

"Not your fault," Jack responded. "I should have been more sensitive. I'm sorry, I didn't think first."

"No, it's okay." Ianto tried to sit up, head swimming. "Are Tosh and Owen alright?" Jack's hand released its grip on Ianto's wrists, and he realized that his neck hurt as well. He lifted a hand and felt wetness on his Adam's apple, in the hollow of his throat. He must've clawed himself trying to breathe.

"Tosh and Owen?" Jack repeated. "They're fine."

"Then - " Ianto's brain kicked into gear and he felt his pulse begin to race again. "Oh, god, no." His mum was out with Ellyn. They'd had a lunch and a short afternoon of shopping planned. He felt himself begin to shake before he was gathered in strong arms and held against Jack's chest. He couldn't do this, not again.

"No, Ianto. No." Jack said firmly. "Your mom is going to be alright. She's pretty badly banged up, but she's okay."

"She's okay?" Ianto whispered the question.

"She will be. Owen is calling the Royal Infirmary right now to get her actual status and to try to get her transferred back over to St. David's. "Jack hugged him tight again. "I'm sorry," he said softly. "I could have done that a bit better."

Ianto just shook his head slightly, forehead resting against Jack's shoulder, feeling utterly drained and empty.

"Hey."

Ianto looked up at Gwen's soft voice. Her eyes were red rimmed and she was pale, dark hair messily tucked behind her ears. She knelt next to him and handed over a bottle of juice. "Owen says I can take you to hospital after you've finished that," she said gently. "Your mum is stable but in critical condition at the moment. They won't be able to move her until she's been taken off the critical list."

He nodded but found his hands were still shaking too much to get the cap off the bottle. Gwen took it back and opened it for him. "I can take myself to hospital," he said after taking a swig, still feeling the steady beat of Jack's heart against his chest. "You all have work to do and –"

"Ianto."

He found his chin being tipped up to look into Jack's eyes, while Gwen took his left hand.

"Let Gwen drive you. I'm pretty sure you shouldn't be behind the wheel," Jack said softly. "Go see your mum and take whatever time you need. I know it's going to be a rough day – has been a rough day. If you want to talk later, I'll be here."

"We all will," Tosh spoke up from the doorway, Owen hovering behind with one of the field med-kits.

"I-" Ianto felt at a loss for words. He'd isolated himself so much after Russ had died that it almost felt foreign to let these people he called friends get close enough to care about him. He cared about them, deeply, even after only a month, having seen how much they relied on one another and how much they resembled a family of their own. Completely different to cold, bureaucratic corporate Torchwood in London. "Thank you," he said.

"Alright, enough with the mushy team bonding bit," Owen said with a snort, shoving past Toshiko. "Drink," he ordered with a wink, as he opened the kit and rifled around for anti-septic and plasters.

Ianto managed a small smile at Owen's gruffness and did as he was told, glancing up at Jack who was looking at Gwen with a faint expression of amusement. Ianto turned to Gwen who was staring down at their linked hands, the silver band shining like a beacon under the florescent lights. He lifted his chin a bit at Owen's gentle prodding.

"Gwen," he said softly and she looked up. "I can't talk about it today." He looked down at their hands again. He felt Jack's hand, still on his neck, squeeze gently. "At least, not right now." He squeezed her hand. "But I will."


	4. Chapter 4: The Anniversary cont

Jack took over Ianto's task of sorting through the CCTV footage around the pubs where the missing men had apparently been turned to dust while Gwen drove Ianto to Cardiff Royal Infirmary. It didn't take him long to place each of the eight men at the pubs, or to see that they'd all eventually hooked up with the same woman. He grabbed a screenshot of the young woman and ran it through the database while he continued to watch the footage.

He watched the young woman slam a guy against the wall of one of the clubs, kissing him frantically, pulling at his hair, nipping and licking at whatever flesh she could reach, fumbling with his zipper with her other hand. Jack watched as they, concealed by the couples dancing around them, screwed up against the wall. The young man reached orgasm and throwing his head back seemed to turn into a vapor that the young woman absorbed, leaving a pile of dust at her feet.

His computer beeped a match and tore the page from his printer, carrying it out to Tosh and Owen, gathered around Tosh's station.

"He lost someone," Tosh was saying. "There aren't any details in his file, but he took a month's worth of bereavement leave this time last year."

"If you're done snooping through your co-worker's confidential files," Jack said with a smirk, "I think I've found our girl."

Toshiko flushed and hurriedly closed out of the records she'd (probably easily) hacked her way into.

"It's okay. I'd be curious too. I won't tell if you don't. Just – he told Gwen he would talk about it eventually. Give him some time," Jack said, feeling strangely defensive of their youngest member. Though at thirty, it wasn't as if Ianto was a boy who needed to be protected from school-yard bullies (in comparison to Jack himself, however – that was another story).

"Anyway –" He held up the i.d. of the young woman he'd pulled. "Let's go catch us a praying mantis, shall we?"

"Praying mantis?" Owen spoke up.

"Looks like," Jack said. "She has sex with her victims, which kills them. Any luck tracing the gas that UNIT said escaped from the meteor?"

"No," Tosh said. "What if it's not a gas but -"

"A gaseous alien entity that feeds off orgasmic energy?" Owen sneered.

"Exactly," Jack confirmed with a bright smile. "So let's see if we can find this girl before she finds even more trouble."

"I'll start on the CCTV footage and see if I can get a match," Tosh said, already typing away, her five monitors lighting up with images from around the city.

"Concentrate on pubs," Owen advised. "It's too early for the club crowd."

"Alright. Tosh get a lead on her location. Owen, prep the SUV for me, yeah? I'll call UNIT and the local police and have them ready to stand by if we need their help. Tosh, we'll probably need you with us if Gwen doesn't make it back before we need to roll." Without Ianto to act as back up support in the hub, guiding them around and feeding them information, Tosh would need to do it, but Jack would also need her help in the field if Gwen was able to stand up to Ianto's powers of persuasion and not be run off from Marian's side.

"No problem," Tosh responded, hooking up her earpiece.

Jack dashed up the stairs to his office, retrieving his own earpiece and placing the calls to the local police and UNIT. He had just hung up when Gwen emerged through the main entrance, clutching at her bag and looking worn out.

"Hey," he called down to her. He met her halfway to her station and tugged her into a hug. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Gwen sighed. "They're keeping her sedated. He said he'd be fine."

"He will be." He kissed the top of her head. "You ready to get back to work."

Gwen pulled away and swiped at her eyes. She sniffed and gave her head a toss and appeared to pull herself back together. "Yeah. What's up?"

"The info you pulled earlier gave us a lead. It looks like there's a girl running around Cardiff having sex with blokes and sucking them dry. Literally." Owen said.

Gwen blinked. "Well. Okay then."

Jack couldn't help but chuckle. Gwen was new enough to Torchwood that things still held an element of unreality for her.

"Jack!" Tosh called. "I've got her. She's at a local sperm bank!"

"Oh, shit," Owen swore.

"No kidding. Alright," Jack said. "Gwen, Owen, you're with me. Tosh, keep in contact and let us know if she moves. Alert UNIT. Let's go." Jack led the others to the SUV and they piled in. Jack turned on the flashing lights as he peeled out of the garage, wishing once again he could get authorization for a siren on the Land Rover.

_UNIT is on the way,_ Tosh said into their ears. _They're going to lock down the building but not engage, waiting for your orders, Jack._

"For once," Owen muttered.

"How many people inside the building, Tosh?"

_It's been evacuated. Maybe five men left inside who couldn't get out._

"Okay."

"Jack, how are we going to contain it?" Gwen asked.

"Portable cells," Jack answered, taking a sharp corner at high speed, throwing them all against their seatbelts.

"So," Owen snarked. "We just have to figure out how to get the alien sex gas creature thingy out of the girl. Simple. No problem."

"Nope!" Jack said cheerily. "Got it all worked out." He didn't have a clue. He was winging it, like he did most of the time.

Owen snorted.

Jack pulled the vehicle to a rough stop in the middle of the street, already cordoned off by UNIT vehicles. Gwen and Owen followed Jack out, the two soldiers guarding the doors let them pass.

"Tosh, any idea where she is in the building?"

_Third floor_.

They trooped up the stairs and burst into the third floor waiting room where the girl sat on the floor, knees hugged to her chest, rocking gently. "It hurts," she muttered.

"What does, sweetie?" Gwen asked gently, kneeling down next to her.

"Everything. Like burning from the inside."

"It's consuming her," Jack said softly. "The alien entity, it's burning out her body." He met Gwen's gaze and nodded slightly.

"Take me," Gwen offered. "Let the girl go. You're killing her."

"Need, need," the girl muttered.

Jack crouched down and kissed her, infusing as much energy as he could into the kiss. When he pulled away the girl was faintly glowing. "Go to Gwen," he said softly. "And there's more where that came from."

"So nice," the girl whispered. And promptly collapsed as a gaseous cloud emerged from her and moved toward Gwen.

Jack tossed out the portable cell from his pocket, trapping the gaseous creature. "Tosh, we've got it." He heard her sigh of relief over the comm.

Owen was checking the girl over while Jack collapsed the cell and stuffed it back in his pocket.

"What are we going to do with it?" Gwen asked, getting to her feet.

"Bundle it off to London and let Yvonne deal with it, like everything else," Jack said dryly. It was cruel and he knew he was subjecting whatever creature it was to a probably short life of experimentation at the hands of Yvonne's scientists at Torchwood 1. But he also knew that Ianto was sending more thorough reports up to London than Jack could ever be bothered to complete, and he'd rather not deal with Yvonne "for Queen and country" Hartman.

Especially when he thought she was up to something. Jack didn't know what it was, but the report Ianto had presented to him a week previous was a cause for concern.

"She's going to be fine," Owen announced. "Can we let UNIT clean up their own mess, this time?"

"I think so," Jack agreed, just as a few more soldiers appeared in the room. "Threat contained. She's all yours, boys."

Ianto let himself into the hub through the tourist shop entrance. The hub was in lockdown for the evening but his codes and a quick retinal scan got him past the deceptively simple deadbolt lock. He relocked the door behind him, letting his shoulders slump with a sigh in the relative privacy of the above-stairs office. He was strung out, exhausted, the tension headache he'd been struggling against all day blown into a full grown migraine.

Not that it'd stopped him from walking the two miles or so from Cardiff Royal Infirmary to the hub. He wouldn't let the nurses call him a cab and his car had been left in the carpark when Gwen had driven him to hospital. He just wanted to find his car keys and take himself home, to a hot shower, a stiff drink and a likely night of pacing until he passed out or his mum's doctors called with a change in her status, or some emergency called them all back to the hub.

The doctors were keeping his mum sedated through the night. She had fractures in both of her arms from bracing herself on the dashboard, Ianto figured. Cuts and bruises on her face from the shattered windscreen. Her clavicle had broken under the seatbelt and there was a two-inch wide diagonal bruise on the length of her chest and a broken nose from impacting the air bag. He had been advised that she would probably need to see a chiropractor because her back and neck would likely be out of sorts from the impact.

Still, she was alive.

He felt a miserable wreck and knew he probably looked it as well. The terror he'd felt when Jack had announced there had been an accident hadn't completely faded, the memories he had thought suppressed enough to get through the day resurfacing at odd moments, sights and sounds of the hospital bringing everything back up.

He'd meant what he'd said down on the bay a lifetime ago that morning. He was terrified that he was going to have to face losing his mum and he was all but estranged from his sibs. He'd called them both, leaving a message on Rhian's answerphone, not having bothered to try to calculate the time difference. Tristan was out on maneuvers, but Ianto had been promised that a message would reach him.

He knew there was something his mum wasn't telling him. Something niggled in the back of his mind that she'd been a bit more distant in the last week, a bit more cautious. Ianto had tried to tell himself that she was just being considerate, but he couldn't help but think she was keeping something from him. She had finished her chemo that morning; she and Ellyn had gone out as a means of celebration.

He was going to need to hire a caregiver, he realized. He couldn't possibly take as much time off as caring for his mum would require. Flexibility in his schedule was one thing, but Ianto didn't think the Captain would be willing to give him indefinite leave. Not when it sounded like something was going on in London and Jack would likely need his contacts there.

Ianto opened his eyes as he felt something brush past him, but there was no-one in the room. He looked around, catching a flash of grey out of the corner of his eye, but nothing more. Passing it off as exhaustion and his headache, he straightened up and moved around behind the counter to let himself into the hub proper. They all rotated on tourist duty, and since it hadn't been his day, his keys were likely with his other belongings at his desk or at his station in the Archives.

The secured door rolled back, and Ianto stepped through finding the hub set to the low lighting that defaulted when no movement was detected. As he moved through the space the lights turned on and Ianto heard a quiet beeping. He stopped at Toshiko's station, keying through her various open screens until the alert popped up. Something triggered the Rift alarm.

Ianto snagged Tosh's seat with his foot and seated himself. About a minute before, something had caused some kind of activity in the Rift. The general screen Ianto had up in front of him didn't give him any specifics as to whether or not anything had emerged from the Rift, so he scrolled through the data on the linked screen. From what he could see (and remember from Tosh's lesson on the monitoring program), it almost looked like a kind of temporal earthquake had taken place, causing the alarm.

"Ianto? What are you doing here?"

Ianto looked up and turned at Jack's voice, having thought he was alone in the hub. Moving so quickly turned out to be a bad idea as the room tilted dizzyingly for a moment. He clenched his teeth and closed his eyes against the wave of nausea, waiting for it to pass.

"Whoa," Jack said quietly behind him. "You alright? You're looking a little green around the gills."

"Headache," he murmured as he felt Jack's hand, warm and large on the back of his neck. He sucked in a deep breath and opened his eyes, finding the room back where it should have been, Jack looking down worriedly at him. "I'm alright."

"Uh-huh," Jack said. "What've you got there."

Ianto stifled a groan as Jack's thumb dug into a knot at the base of his neck. "Something tripped the Rift alarm. It looks like some kind of temporal quake or something. I don't know what to make of it."

"Are we going to explode in the next twenty-four hours?" Jack asked.

"I don't think so," Ianto replied, confused.

"Leave it then. Why are you here, Ianto? You should be at the hospital or at home."

Ianto felt Jack shift, felt a second hand on his shoulders. "My keys are here, sir," he said, biting his lip as twin thumbs dug into his shoulders. "And the nurses kicked me out."

"How's your mom?"

"They think she's going to be fine, but they won't know until tomorrow for sure. Ow," he couldn't hold back the exclamation.

"Your shoulders feel like bricks," Jack said quietly, hands stilling.

"Been a rough day," Ianto said with a sigh.

"Want to talk about it?"

Ianto considered it. "I miss Russ. I think my mum's hiding stuff from me. I think Yvonne's up to her usual tricks bent on world domination for the Rebirth of the British Empire, and I really need a cuppa tea."

"Tea I know I can handle," Jack said.

"I can-" Ianto started.

"You're not the tea-boy, Ianto, for all that we appreciate your coffee. Trust me, my coffee tastes like battery acid, but I can brew tea." Jack squeezed Ianto's shoulders once more. "It's no problem. Brandy?"

Ianto sighed. "Absolutely," he answered, despite knowing it would go straight to his head since he hadn't eaten anything since the biscuit Gwen had brought him with tea at the hospital.

"Have you eaten?" Jack called, as if reading Ianto's mind.

His stomach rolled at the thought of food. "I'm not really hungry, Jack, but thanks." He didn't hear a response save for banging around in the kitchen, which could never be a good thing. Ianto wasn't explicitly tasked for the cleaning of the hub, but they often got so busy that no one took the time to pick up and it drove Ianto's librarian trained mind around the bend at the chaos that was often found in the hub. He usually did just what was necessary so everyone could find what they needed.

Tosh's chair was uncomfortable, Ianto decided, and he moved to the couch against the wall just behind her station. His eyes slid closed as he listened to Jack continue to bang away in the small kitchen, the clink of spoons against ceramic, the repeated slam of the fridge door that wasn't staying closed but no one had gotten around to replacing. He smiled slightly at the sounds of domesticity and let himself drift off to the semi-familiar sounds.

He cracked his eyes open when Jack clattered back down the stairs from the kitchen. The Captain was carrying a tray loaded with two cups and a couple of plates.

"Nothing fancy," Jack said. "Just toast. But I figured you could use something."

"Thanks," Ianto said, taking the offered plate and cup. He balanced the plate on his knee and cradled the cup in his hands. He took a long sip, letting the tea and brandy wash across his tongue spreading warmth through him as he swallowed. He picked at the one slice of toast Jack had prepared for him, nibbling at it slowly, expecting rebellion from his stomach.

"You've got everyone worried, you know," Jack said casually. "Tosh hacked your employee file this afternoon and Gwen's convinced you're hiding some secret life."

Ianto snorted. "I'm surprised it's taken Toshiko this long to hack my file. There's not much there, anyway. Russ wasn't a Torchwood employee so all it shows is that I took leave last year." He took another sip. "And I'm amazed that Gwen didn't notice before." He wiggled his left finger. "I've never taken it off."

"We were going to have kids," Ianto said after a moment. "Well, we were talking about it. Lisa, a friends of ours who works in accounting in London, was going to surrogate for us. Russ was trying to talk me into it. I wasn't sure I was ready, and I didn't take him seriously. And then it was too late."

"He was a pediatrician?"

Ianto nodded. "Pediatric oncology. All his patients loved him. "

"Sounds like he was a good doctor."

"He was." He finished his tea. With a sigh, he kicked off his shoes and curled his legs up underneath him on the couch. "I wish he was around now. I could use his help with Mum."

"Anything I can do to help?" Jack asked, setting his plate on the floor.

Ianto shrugged. "I just get the feeling she's not telling me something. She finished chemo today, and she went out to celebrate with Ellyn. Do we know what happened?"

"Gwen pulled Ellyn's statement. She said she thought she saw someone in the road and swerved to miss hitting them. But none of the witnesses reported seeing anything, and Ellyn admitted she just saw a blur, a blob of grey."

"Grey?" Ianto blinked. Just before he'd come into the hub, he'd seen a glimpse of grey, vaguely person shaped out of the corner of his eye. And then the Rift alarm had gone off.

"Ianto?" Jack prompted. "What are you thinking?"

"I don't think Ellyn was seeing things." He got up from the couch and staggered tiredly to Tosh's station, pulling up the CCTV footage for the tourist office. He scrolled it back to where he let himself in for the evening and played it frame by frame, freezing when he caught the image he was looking for. "Look," he said to Jack, transferring the full size image to one of Toshiko's monitors and pulling up the Rift monitoring program for the same time stamp and saw the spike that triggered the alarm.

"I'll be damned," Jack said softly. "Did it come through the Rift?"

"I don't know," Ianto said. "But its appearance and the temporal quake happened at the same time."

"I wonder," Jack mused. "What's this latest project Yvonne's working on?"

Ianto yawned. "Something to do with harnessing an energy source."

"Hm. Okay. Tomorrow I want you to see if you can contact your old friends in London and see if they can shed any more light on what's happening in London. I have a bad feeling that whatever Yvonne is up to may be trigging our Rift disruptions." Jack reached in front of Ianto and switched off the monitors. "Can I drive you home?"

"I think I'd rather stay in one of the spare rooms here tonight," Ianto said. "If that's okay?"

"Fine with me," Jack said. "But they're not the most comfortable."

Ianto shrugged one shoulder. "I'm not likely to sleep anyway."

"Me either," Jack admitted. "I don't sleep much. So how about we keep each other company tonight?"

"I'd like that," Ianto said, finding a tired smile. "So long as you don't get offended if I do actually fall asleep."

Jack led Ianto to the quarters he kept under his office. The space was richly furnished with a large bed, wardrobe, and a couple of extremely comfortable chairs with a table and lamp set between them. He left the lights turned low and lit a few pillar candles scattered around the space for a bit more soft light. Jack had a private bath set off his room and he directed Ianto that way to wash up if he wanted.

Ianto did and returned, glancing over the framed photos Jack had hung on the walls while Jack set their respective pots of coffee and tea on hot plates he kept handy for when he didn't want to be running to the kitchen every half-hour for a refill.

"You know the Doctor?" Ianto asked quietly, looking at a picture of Jack, Rose, and the Doctor from the time they stopped in Cardiff and encountered Margaret the Slitheen.

"I travelled with him for awhile," Jack said, coming up behind Ianto. "Have you met him?"

Ianto shook his head. "I was buried in the Archives when he was seen at Downing Street during the Slitheen Event and then again at Christmas during the Sycorax invasion. Pictures were passed around so we'd recognize him, but no. I've not met him."

"He's about due for a stop, so you might still have a chance. He pops in every few months linear time. I think he's checking up on me, but he says the TARDIS is getting on in years and needs more frequent refueling. The Rift acts as an alternative energy source for the old girl."

"Why'd you stop travelling with him?" Ianto asked. He picked up a cup of tea (milk, no brandy) and settled into one of Jack's battered armchairs.

"It wasn't so much by choice," Jack admitted. "We got caught up in a war. I was killed and when I came back he and Rose were gone. I made my way here to look for him, and I found him during the Sycorax invasion." Jack looked at Ianto, who didn't seem at all phased by the revelation that Jack had died and come back to life. "Your mother ratted me out, didn't she?" He asked with a smile.

Ianto shrugged. "She dropped a few hints when I transferred. But mostly it was finding your signature on documents in the Archives going back to the post-war period. And a picture of you from the same time, looking the same as you do now."

"Rose brought me back to life," Jack said quietly. "We're none of us sure how it happened, but she did it, and since then, I can't die. The Doctor's helped me get used to that, taught me how to center myself and not go crazy from the lack of sleep, since I only seem to need a few hours every week, but the human mind was never designed to go without dreaming for so long."

He poured himself a coffee, strong and black. "He offered to take me back with him after that. But I've come to like working for Torchwood, protecting the Earth," he said with a grin. "It feels right to be here, in this time."

"Getting to play the hero," Ianto said with a smirk. "Complete with the billowing coat in place of the cape."

"Only because I can't stand to wear tights," Jack sighed dramatically. "Sure, they show off my legs, but they chafe something terrible. And you know spandex doesn't breathe."

Ianto laughed and Jack smiled around his cup. He liked hearing Ianto laugh.

"So, did you get UNIT's mess cleaned up?" Ianto asked conversationally.

"Yup. Orgasm consuming alien gas is contained and ready to be packed off to London, unless the containment cell is somehow accidentally misplaced until such time it can be placed into safer hands," Jack said with a wink.

"The Archives are vast and largely unsorted, sir. It's very easy to misplace things," Ianto said gravely.

"Really?" Jack said, raising an eyebrow. "And what of the report to Yvonne that shows the apprehension of said alien?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, sir. I know of no such report." Ianto sipped his tea.

Ianto continued to surprise Jack. He knew that Yvonne had asked him to more or less keep an eye on Jack. It seemed that Ianto's loyalties were not so easily divided. "Is that so? Hm." Jack frowned.

"Jack, you and I both know what Yvonne Hartman is capable of, and what she asked me to do so that my transfer would be approved," Ianto said seriously. "I don't agree with most of her methods, which includes the incarceration and interrogation of all prisoners that Torchwood takes. Hell, I'm not sure they should all be prisoners. I've been here for a month and seen how you do things. And now I know it's because you know what you're doing and not just because you're some rogue element acting out. How many aliens have you resettled in Cardiff because they're harmless beings looking for sanctuary?"

Jack shrugged. "A couple dozen. The rest we send on their way or contain until we can get them home wherever possible. The Doctor grumbles about being a taxi service, but I don't think he really minds most of the time."

"That's what I'm talking about. Yvonne and her department heads in London take 'if it's alien it's ours' to heart. I prefer the way things are here. There's no experimentation on live beings and real communication with UNIT and other organizations that can support us. Yvonne's let the London office get isolated from any other group that could provide support that someday she's going to blow up the world but no one will know until it's too late."

Jack watched as Ianto slumped back into his chair with a tired sigh, his eyes sliding closed tightly. He recalled the feel of rock-hard shoulders under his fingertips and something about a headache. Jack stood, setting down his coffee and holding out a hand. "Come here."

Ianto looked at him, puzzled, but allowed himself to be hauled up and guided toward Jack's large bed. "Take your shirt off," Jack said. "Both of them," he corrected, rooting around in a drawer beside his bed for some lightly scented oil. "You need to relax."

He watched as Ianto complied, a small frown of confusion on his face that brightened to recognition and gratefulness as he realized what Jack was about. Without further prompting he lay down in the center of Jack's bed, pillowing his head on his forearms.

"Swim?" Jack asked, taking in the toned arms and flat, though not rigidly defined abs.

"And run, when I have time," Ianto said, voice muffled.

"Now see," Jack said, pouring out some oil into his hand and warming it. "We spend our days running after aliens, the rest of us. I don't think Gwen or Owen would even consider running for fun. Tosh, well, she must not run enough at work because I know she runs outside."

Ianto snorted. "You lot do seem to spend a lot of time running for your lives."

"It's not running for our lives," Jack protested, climbing onto the bed and positioning himself over Ianto, his inner thighs against Ianto's outer. "It's strategic retreating in the face of an overwhelming foe."

Ianto laughed again and Jack appreciated the play of warm skin under his fingers. His hands slid slowly over the pale back and shoulders, letting the muscles warm to his touch. "Is this alright?" he asked softly, aware of the fact that he'd all but ordered the younger man onto his bed.

"Hm," came the muffled reply before Ianto turned his head to one side. "You do this for all your employees?"

Jack laughed. "Actually, yes." He started working at the small of Ianto's back and slowly worked his way up in long strokes with the heel of his hand. "Tosh gives herself blinding migraines on a monthly basis, Gwen gets too involved in cases and needs the distraction and Owen, well, I think Owen is just trying to get into my pants," Jack said, once again rewarded with one of Ianto's bright laughs. "We've actually got a small room set up just off the autopsy room with a proper massage table."

"Ah," Ianto said. "So not everyone gets _this_treatment, then?"

"No," Jack agreed. "Not everyone."

With that, they fell into a comfortable silence, broken only by the smooth sound of skin on skin and the occasional grunt of pain from Ianto as Jack worked out a stubborn knot. Ianto's breathing turned deep and even and Jack thought maybe he'd succeeded in putting him to sleep. But as his hands started to slow over the thoroughly oiled and slightly reddened skin, Ianto stirred a bit.

Jack rose up slightly on his knees as Ianto rolled over and sat up, bringing them nearly nose to nose. He didn't move as Ianto's hand reached for his neck and pulled him forward, noses bumping before Ianto shifted again and brought their lips together.

He let Ianto take the lead, not wanting to take advantage or press his luck. He responded when Ianto pressed the kiss deeper, his hands drifting up and down Ianto's bare arms while Ianto's fingers tugged at the short hair at Jack's nape.

They kissed for what seemed like hours, until Ianto pulled away, bright flush across his cheeks, lips red and swollen, laughter and something else dancing in his grey-blue eyes. "This is going to make things weird, isn't it?" he asked quietly, not dropping Jack's gaze.

"This is Torchwood," Jack responded. "Weird is what we do." He kissed Ianto firmly on lips. "But we can talk about it tomorrow. You're exhausted."

"Hm," Ianto agreed, contentedly letting Jack rearrange him on the bed. "I'm going to need a bit of personal time," he said. "Mum's going to need a caregiver when she's released from hospital."

"I thought you said she was going to be okay?" Jack slipped off the bed.

"Mm, she is, but she's broken both her arms," Ianto muttered. "And her nose. And her clavicle." He snuggled down into Jack's pillow.

"Take the time you need," Jack said, smoothing over the skin of Ianto's back again. "Or, we can always bring her here and keep an eye on her." He smiled and got a sleepy smile in return.

"I think she'd like that." Ianto yawned. "And Jack?"

"Yeah?" he stepped back to the bed.

"Thanks," Ianto whispered. "For being here. For listening."

Jack kissed Ianto again, rapidly developing the sense he'd never get enough of his kisses if he kept this up. "You're welcome. Get some sleep." He watched Ianto snuggle down into the mattress again before blowing out the candles and turning all the lamps out but the one by the hotplate and his chair. He settled in for the night with a book, but found that his attention was repeatedly drawn away from the first edition Austen in his hands to the pale body stretched out in his bed.


	5. Chapter 5: Ghosts

Chapter 3: Ghosts

Over the course of two weeks, the faint shimmering of vague grey shapes that Ianto had identified on Tosh's screens had bloomed into a full blown phenomena that the worldwide media had dubbed 'ghost shifts.' The popular consensus seemed to be that ghosts of loved-ones long dead were trying to make contact with their relations.

Owen snorted as they watched an American broadcast over lunch. "Do they really think people are buying this drivel?"

"How else are they going to explain it?" Gwen asked, picking at her container of Chinese takeaway.

"The Christian Right in America is claiming that the 'ghosts' are angels heralding the return of Jesus," Ianto said. "The scientific community is calling them deluded and disputing the 'ghost' theory and claiming that it's an alternate reality out of phase, which is probably closer to the truth. Others are arguing that it's an act of worldwide terrorism causing the populations of the world to hallucinate in an effort to drive us all mad."

"I think you're probably right," Tosh said, toying with her chopsticks. "The alternate reality theory, I mean." She paused, sucking on the end of one of her utensils. "The 'ghosts' are vaguely humanoid, yet make no attempt to actually interact with people here, as if they're not seeing us."

"Alternate realities?" Gwen asked.

"Parallel universes, alternate realities, they're all basically the same thing," Jack said, waving his fork around idly.

"Yes," Gwen said, "but how?"

Jack sometimes forgot that Gwen was fairly new to Torchwood and that she didn't come from a scientifically educated background, and that she remained largely ignorant of the universe(s) at large. "Tosh?"

She swallowed a bite before continuing. "There is a popular theory among scientists, especially those working for UNIT and Torchwood and similar organizations, that an infinite number of alternate realities exist. Every time we make a decision, a different reality is spawned from the infinite possibilities of that decision."

Jack laughed at Gwen's faintly cross-eyed look. "Look at it this way, Gwen. Let's say you had to decide how you were going to get to the hub this morning," he started. "You have any number of possibilities. You could have driven, walked, taken the bus, called Tosh or Owen for a ride, taken a cab, had Rhys drop you, etc. For each of those possibilities, an alternate reality developed, and for each of those realities you made a different choice, which resulted in different actions."

"So," Gwen paused. "Today I drove to the hub and nothing happened, but in an alternate reality I chose to walk and got hit by a bus?"

"Or walked and made it safely, or walked and was attacked by a Weevil, or walked and was hit by a car, or walked and was mugged or walked and -" Jack listed.

"Enough!" Gwen said with a laugh. "Okay, I think I get it. But then how is it possible that the 'ghosts' are phasing into our reality?"

"Could it have anything to do with whatever is causing the Rift to go crazy?" Owen asked, stealing an eggroll from Gwen's plate.

"The 'ghosts' appear at the same time we get an alarm from Rift," Tosh mused. "And the 'ghosts' are appearing at regular intervals, every eight hours for the last three days, up from every twelve from the week before. So, something must be causing both, and on purpose."

"Ianto?" Jack asked, catching the young man staring off into the middle distance, though he was sure Ianto was paying attention.

"Hm?" Ianto looked up with a slight shake of his head. "I'm sorry?" He looked exhausted.

"Everything alright, pet?" Gwen asked. "You spaced out on us for a minute."

"Oh, yeah," he answered. "Sorry about that. Thinking."

"What's on your mind?" Jack asked. He could almost see the wheels of Ianto's mind turning. Though what he was thinking about, Jack couldn't be sure.

"The project Yvonne's overseeing in London is to try to extract energy from something one of her field teams recovered," he said, sounding like he was still just thinking aloud. "If whatever this energy source is came from a parallel universe, the attempts to draw power from it is causing that alternate reality to phase with ours. We don't know much about the Rift, but it could be that whatever they're up to in London is filtering through or being amplified by the Rift, since we don't exactly know how far it stretches. If the appearances of the 'ghosts' are coinciding with the temporal quakes in the Rift, and it seems that the 'ghosts' are being phased in on a schedule, then there has to be some link."

"If that's true," Tosh said, sitting up a bit straighter, "then we could be phasing into the alternate universe as well. And since we know that the phases seem to be causing some trouble with our Rift," she continued, "then who knows what it's doing on the one on their side, if there is one."

"Have we ever been able to quantify the Rift's presence?" Gwen asked. "I mean, a fixed starting and end point?"

Jack shook his head. "In the sixty-plus years I've been in Cardiff, all we've been able to determine is that the Rift holds a somewhat stable center point right here." He pointed upwards, indicating the plaza above. "Other than that, it seems to fluctuate, and we haven't really been able to pin down its movements to any relatable pattern. It was mostly healed back in 1869, but has never been completely closed. Three years ago it was blown completely open again."

"Wasn't that about the time the Mayor of Cardiff went missing?" Ianto asked, smirking.

"The Mayor of Cardiff was a Slitheen who managed to escape the destruction of Downing Street and was trying to blow open the Rift and surf her way home," Jack said dryly. He knew that Ianto had known from London what had happened with the plan for the Blaidd Drwg power plant. "And she didn't go missing. She got a lift home."

"Margaret Blaine was an alien?" Gwen gawked. "I voted for her."

"Just goes to show," Jack started, laughing when Gwen flicked rice at him.

"Not to change the subject, but do we know what the London teams are using for this experiment?" Owen asked.

"I'm trying to get more information from my old friends up in London," Ianto said softly. "But it's getting more difficult. Lisa, a friend of mine in accounting and Terrance in the Archives said that Yvonne's demanding strict security around the project, which is making everyone in the Tower very uncomfortable. It's a disc, roughly two arm spans across, and made of an incredibly dense metallic material that remains cool to the touch no matter what sources of hot or cold are applied to it. That's all they were able to find out before Yvonne ordered all those involved with the project to be sequestered within the Towers and cut off all contact to other departments that she didn't initiate. I haven't heard anything else from Lisa since late yesterday."

Jack frowned. That was a little power-mad, even for Yvonne Hartman. "Do we know where it came from?"

"London could have pulled it here," Tosh suggested quietly. "They have more in their Archives than we could ever imagine Jack, just ask Ianto. It's possible they finally figured out how to use some of that tech and managed to bring whatever it is straight to them."

Ianto nodded. "When I left, researchers were constantly checking new items out of the Archives for further research. Torchwood 1 has vast resources, Jack, but they don't have anyone like you who has any practical experience on what any of that stuff does."

"All this speculation is well and good," Owen put in. "But it doesn't really get us anywhere, now does it?"

"Sure it does," Jack said brightly. "Tosh let's put up everything we know."

Tosh flipped the monitor that was still showing American broadcast news to the screen that reflected the screen of her laptop as she began to type up bullet points as the others spoke.

"The disc was 'recovered' nearly a month ago," Ianto said.

"We've been seeing increased Weevil activity for the last few weeks," Gwen said with a shrug. "It could be related."

"The Weevils we have been able to track down are more aggressive and resistant to the spray," Owen acknowledged.

"The Rift alarm has been going off more frequently in the last month, and in the last two weeks, the presence of the 'ghosts' has coincided with the Rift alarm," Tosh finished.

"Could the Weevils be sensitive to the Rift?" Gwen asked. "I mean, they're really only found here in Cardiff, right? Why stay within the city sewers if they could find better hunting in any of the rural areas?"

"Because the Rift is only fixed here in Cardiff, over the Plass," Jack said. "Gwen, you're brilliant. Okay, I think we may have a new place to start. Gwen and Owen, step up your research on the Weevils. Let's see if we can tie anything together with the increase in aggressive Weevils and the tremors in the Rift. Tosh, I want you to focus on analyzing the Rift status from the last month, and see if you can at all predict what might happen if these 'ghost shifts' keep happening and increasing as they appear to be. Ianto, I want you to try to keep in contact with your friends in London and help Tosh with the Rift analysis. I've got a very bad feeling about this one, folks."

"What I don't understand," Gwen said. "Is why? I mean, why go to all the trouble to try to harness energy from a source that no one understands? From what I know of Yvonne Hartman, it wouldn't be for simply an alternative power source."

"Yvonne's goals seem to be more imperialistic than alternative energy for the masses," Ianto agreed. "Think of what the 'Empire' can gain with an unlimited source of energy."

"What Empire," Owen snorted.

"The one Yvonne could nearly single handedly create," Tosh spoke up, looking pale. "Think about what it would do in terms of our military. It would set Britain up to be the dominant military power on Earth. Forget the Americans invading countries at will, think about the new Empire Yvonne could manage to see established if she's successful in this. And she wouldn't be limited to just that, either. God, the possibilities, if the power is being drawn through an alternate universe, through a temporal rift, the possibilities are amazing."

"And could be amazingly destructive," Ianto said quietly.

"Yvonne 'Queen and Country' Hartman," Jack muttered.

"I doubt the Queen has much to do with what's currently happening with Torchwood," Ianto said softly, but with an edge to his voice. "Yvonne was appointed head of Torchwood at a much younger age than any of her predecessors, and not without some speculation as to the demise of the last Director. She's been allowed to operate outside the government's control for quite some time, and while I don't doubt she thinks she's acting for the good of the 'Empire,' the rest of the Empire doesn't have a bloody clue what's happening. Hell, the rest of Torchwood doesn't know what's going on."

"We do," Jack corrected. "Which means it's up to us. So let's get to work, people."

"Saving the bloody world," Owen muttered. "Business as usual."

Ianto rubbed at his temples, head aching and swimming from staring at sheets of Rift stats from the last month, trying to see any kind of pattern that might help them figure out what was going on. After six hours, he had a suspicion from the readings, but nothing solid to confirm what he feared - that the Rift was fracturing under the strain of the temporal instabilities caused by the 'ghost shifts.'

The prospect of that was terrifying, and Ianto didn't know as much about the Rift as Jack or Toshiko. There were a few simulations he'd run across in the Archives as he was trying to get them back into a semblance of order, and they hadn't suggested anything good.

He'd taken his research down to the Archives because the pterodactyl was being rowdy and Owen and Gwen couldn't collaborate quietly if their lives depended on it. With a sigh, Ianto sat back and scrubbed his hands over his face, wincing at the stubble scratching against his palms. He left his eyes closed for just a minute as he focused on breathing and trying to clear his mind enough to start over. He was exhausted from staring at numbers, from worrying about his mum, from being on call to help out with whatever crisis the Rift decided to spit at them next. He couldn't seem to get his brain to shut off to give him more than a couple hours of sleep at a time, and he was starting to get more than a little twitchy. Which hadn't been helped when his emails to Lisa kept getting bounced back as undeliverable.

So he most definitely didn't jump when he felt a pair of large warm hands on his shoulders.

"Sorry," Jack said softly behind him, amused. "Gwen's gone to get your mom and pick up something for dinner.

"Did she call?" Ianto asked, letting his head fall forward a bit as Jack worked at his shoulders.

"She called Gwen," Jack responded. "I think she wanted some girl time."

Ianto chuckled. His mum had refused a caregiver and instead was spending her days with Ellyn or one of her other friends in the city and in the evenings would come to the hub until Ianto wrapped things up for the night. And with the Rift being overactive in wake of the quakes, those nights were getting later and later. "She wants gossip," he said. Gwen had taken more than her share of the mum-running. Ianto thought she might be rather desperate for another girlfriend besides Tosh.

"Ianto Jones," Jack scolded mildly. "Are you accusing your mother, one of the UK's most respected engineers and highly valued member of the UNIT community of gossiping about her son and her son's boss."

"Yes." Ianto said simply, smiling at Jack's laugh. "Though, really, she's not just gossiping about us, but Tosh and her new girlfriend, Owen's antics, the wedding plans, the 'ghosts.' Knowing that Gwen caught us snogging in the supply closet was just a bonus, I think."

"Tosh has a new girlfriend?" Jack asked. "How did I not know that?"

"They've only been seeing each other a week, and you know what the last week has been like, Jack. She didn't want to say anything yet."

"Humph," Jack grumped. "No one tells me anything."

"I'll tell you something," Ianto said, lowering his voice.

"Yeah?" Jack's voice sounded hopeful, and Ianto knew if he turned around his Captain would be wearing that open grin.

"If you keep doing that," he said, aiming for his best seductive tone. "I'm likely to fall asleep down here." Ianto laughed as Jack groaned, and felt the Captain's forehead come to rest on the back of his own.

"That wasn't what I was expecting, you know." Jack's hands stilled. "Come on. You need a break and the girls should be back shortly. Gwen and Owen had some luck with the Weevil research, and barring everything going completely tits up on us tonight, we may actually get some sleep."

Ianto sighed as he stood. "Oh, you're a sweet talker," he mocked, letting Jack pull him into a hug before finding himself thoroughly kissed.

"And when did Gwen catch us in the storeroom?" Jack asked when he broke the kiss.

"Last week?" Ianto prompted. "You remember the startled gasp and stuttered apology and she couldn't look either of us in the face for the rest of the day?"

"Oh." Jack grinned. "Right. That's what happened. I wondered why she couldn't bear to look at me." He shrugged. "Her loss."

Ianto laughed. "You know she just ran and told Tosh and they saved the CCTV footage."

Jack kissed him again. "Probably. Come on. Food."

"Yes, sir," Ianto replied cheekily. He let Jack lead him back upstairs, but Ianto detoured to the kitchen to make coffee. Toshiko and Owen had already gathered, Tosh with her laptop and Owen with a stack of papers and his notepad.

Gwen and his mum had arrived with sandwiches and salads and juice by the time Ianto was done with the coffee. Arms laden down with his tray, Ianto stooped slightly to accept a kiss on the cheek from both women. Gwen had a sparkle in her eye that Ianto just knew meant she was up to no good. Especially when he saw the matching gleam in his mum's eyes.

He stepped away with a smile, shaking his head. "I'm not sure I want to know what you two were up to."

"Us?" Gwen fixed him with a look that did nothing to convince him of her innocence.

"Yes, you two," he said, trailing them into the conference room.

Owen claimed one of the bags from Gwen and started distributing sandwiches while Tosh retrieved plates and cutlery from the sideboard near the table.

"Veggie and cheese for Tosh," Owen recited, reading off the labels. "Turkey for Jack and Ianto, pastrami is mine, and tuna for Gwen. Not having a sandwich, Marian?"

Ianto looked up at the question but didn't press.

"I'll just stick to salads, love," his mum responded. "Easier to eat one handed." She winked.

They settled themselves around the table for the second time that day. "Okay, Gwen, Owen, what did you find?" Jack asked, unwrapping his sandwich.

"I went back and took a look at the CCTV footage of the cells during each of the 'ghost shifts,' to see the Weevils' reactions," Gwen said. "During each shift, the Weevils react strongly, curling themselves into a corner of their cells, keening. We haven't been able to tell yet if it's because of the Rift or the 'ghosts,' but still, it's an indicator that our Weevil activity can be connected back to whenever London started playing with their new toy."

"I'm still waiting for those tests I asked for two weeks ago," Owen said. "About the resistance to the spray and whether or not the Weevils are evolving or adapting. London's back burnered my request. Murderous Weevils are apparently not at the top of their list of things that are threatening to the general population of Cardiff."

"Okay, so the Weevils are somehow connected to the Rift," Jack mused. "I guess it doesn't really help much, but it's another piece of the puzzle. Tosh, Ianto, were you able to get anything from the Rift monitors?"

"Possibly," Tosh said. "I think the 'ghosts' are coming through the Rift and that the Rift is acting as an amplifier for the power source that London is trying to access."

"And I think the Rift may be starting to fracture under the strain," Ianto said.

Jack waved at Ianto to continue, mouth full.

"The Rift has been unstable since it was fully reopened three years ago, nearly taking Cardiff down with it," Ianto said. "It seems to experience tides, periods of calmness and activity, but we have never been able to determine a pattern or predict activity with any reliability. Because the Rift spans both time and space, we see debris washing through not only from other time periods but other worlds." He knew he wasn't really saying anything they didn't already know on some level. "I think the new levels of instability we're seeing are results of the Rift beginning to fracture under the strain of being pulled in different directions by Torchwood 1's attempt to draw power from their artifact."

"And fracturing is bad, right?" Gwen clarified.

"Fracturing is bad," Tosh said with a nod. "There are a few things that could happen. Either the Rift splinters completely and we end up with several smaller Rifts throughout Wales at best or the World at worst."

"Or?" his mum asked softly, nearly forgotten at the end of the table.

"Or it blows up dramatically and splits the world in half," Tosh said quietly.

"Okay, so maybe this is a stupid question," Owen said, "but can't we just tell London they're about to blow up the world unless they stop mucking about with things they don't understand?"

"Can we prove any of this?" Jack asked.

Ianto shook his head. He'd known that would be a problem. It was a hunch at best, a logical conclusion, but they had no solid proof. "Nothing conclusive. Yvonne would never believe us."

"Why not?" Gwen asked. "I mean, we're Torchwood, right? All working for the same organization, towards the same purpose?"

"Not exactly," Jack said dryly. "Yvonne doesn't like the way I operate. She thinks I'm a loose cannon running around without a thought to what I'm doing. She doesn't trust me because of my past associations with the Doctor, whom she still sees as the enemy because it's in the charter, despite how many times he's saved this backward ball of mud."

"She thinks Jack's a threat," Ianto said simply. "If we took this to her, she'd think that it was some ploy on Jack's part to get his hands on their new power source."

"But -" Gwen spluttered. "Why?"

There were times that Ianto was jealous of Gwen's naivety, of her simple outlook on the world that remained uncomplicated despite what she'd seen and experienced in her short time with Torchwood.

"Because Yvonne Hartman has become so blinded by her drive to do what's right for 'Queen and Country' that she's lost track of what it means to be part of a team and to trust the people around her," his mum said.

"She asked me to essentially keep tabs on you lot in order to authorize my transfer," Ianto admitted. "Yvonne can't see beyond the Torchwood Charter and recognize there's another way to do things, and sees anyone who opposes her ways as a threat. Its why UNIT is so reluctant to work with Torchwood," he said. "Yvonne has antagonized UNIT to the point where they hardly respond when field teams need their help anymore. Jack's made amazing inroads here to keep UNIT speaking and working with us instead of simply ignoring our calls for aid."

"Which is likely why my requests for analysis on my samples has been ignored," Owen said.

"Probably," Jack agreed.

"But none of that actually helps us," Tosh said softly. "We know the Weevils are getting antsy, and we think the Rift is fracturing, and we know Yvonne won't listen to us if we ask her to stop. So what do we do?"

There was silence in the conference room for a few long moments, all of them poking at their dinner. Ianto met his mum's gaze, returning her small smile, watching Jack out of the corner of his eye.

"How long do you think we have until the Rift goes?" Jack asked.

"Days, weeks?" Tosh answered with a shrug. "I don't know, Jack. We're not really set up for that kind of monitoring. We can see when something comes through the Rift and we've got alarms that go off when something disrupts the Rift like the temporal quakes the 'ghost shifts' are causing. But I'm not sure anything is sensitive enough to tell us how far or fast the Rift is fracturing."

Ianto understood her frustration. They thought they knew what was wrong, but no idea to tell how fast the problem was growing or what they were going to do to fix it.

"Maybe I can help," his mum spoke up. "We should be able to rig up a different kind of sensor to get some more information from the Rift. If you can pin down what's happening, it might help you get the evidence you need to convince London before it's too late."

Ianto nodded when Jack looked at him. Giving his mum something productive to do wouldn't hurt. It would probably be good for her spirit anyway, and it wasn't like they were going to take her out into the field. And like Jack had said, his mum was one of the best engineers in the UK if not the world, and he had little doubt that between the two of them, his mum and Tosh could come up with something.

"Okay," Jack agreed with a nod. "What else? Ianto?"

"I think I've lost contact with Lisa," he said quietly. "I've sent her a couple of messages since lunch, and everything is coming back as undeliverable. It could just be a glitch in the system, but with as paranoid as Yvonne seems to be getting-" he trailed off. "I was going to try calling London tomorrow, seeing if she's at the office."

Jack seemed to be looking at him carefully. "Okay."

"This may be another stupid question," Owen said. "But have we looked through the Archives for anything that could help? Any similar experiments or instances of artifacts recovered from parallel universes?"

Ianto shook his head. "Not directly. But I've got near perfect recall and I haven't seen anything that seems remotely connected. I can spend some more time searching, though."

Jack nodded. "Do it. There's stuff down there going back to at least the 1880s after the Charter was drawn up, and probably before. London and the original Torchwood House in Scotland used to shift all their archives here, before we became a fully manned operation."

"Okay," Ianto said, already sifting through his own internal catalogue of where he should start.

"If there's nothing else, let's get back to work," Jack declared. "Owen, I want you to see what you can do with the equipment we have regarding the Weevils, Gwen, stay on top of the police reports and keep on with the Weevil research."

An alarm sounded on Tosh's laptop. "Ghost shift starting in three minutes," she reported.

Ianto glanced at his watch. It had been nearly eight hours since the last one, and he'd not realized how much time had passed.

"Let's go, people," Jack ordered, and they scrambled. Ianto went to his station within the hub proper to look at the Rift feeds. Tosh and his mum called up all the monitors they had in place to monitor the Rift's behavior while Gwen rushed down the stairs to the cells to observe the Weevils and Jack and Owen called up external CCTV on Owen's screen.

_The Weevils are already starting to react_Gwen reported.

Ianto watched the feed on his screen, not quite sure of what he was seeing as the oscillating lines continued their seemingly random dance.

_One minute thirty_Tosh called.

Ianto frowned, printing a few pages of the feed. He grabbed for a pen at random on his desk and began marking peaks, glancing up at the current feed every few seconds. The peaks were growing closer together as the ghost shift approached, like the Rift was trying to prepare itself, or there was some kind of energy build before the shift actually started.

_Three, two, one,_ Tosh counted down. _Ghost shift._

Around them silvery grey figures shimmered to life. A few moved around, but as Tosh had observed earlier, didn't try to interact. Ianto glanced at his screen, the peaks on the wave model extremely close together, though he really had no idea what it meant. He looked up again as a figure approached his desk. Ianto reached out a hand, palm out, and felt a weird kind of electrostatic pulse against his skin. It hurt, but was tingly, like a mild electrical shock, warm against his palm. The sensation increased as the 'ghost' drifted closer, as if it didn't sense Ianto's presence. He sucked in a breath as the 'ghost' drew up to him, feeling the small shocks increase in intensity along the length of his body. Stunned into place by the rapidly increasing charge, Ianto didn't try to move as the 'ghost' passed through him, and he collapsed, unconscious.


	6. Chapter 6: Ghosts cont

Jack watched as the 'ghost' passed through Ianto, saw his (hopefully soon to be) lover's eyes roll back into his head and collapse into an ungainly heap behind his desk. He was moving across the hub before the younger man hit the floor, Owen hard on his heels.

His breathing was ragged and shallow, but he was breathing.

"His pulse is erratic," Owen said softly. "It looks like he got a minor electrical shock."

"Is it safe to move him?" Jack asked, looking up as Marian looked over the top of Ianto's desk.

"I'd rather wait until the shift ends," Owen said, gently checking Ianto's head and neck from the fall.

"Tosh," Jack called.

"Uh," she responded. "It should have ended five seconds ago."

"Shit," Owen said under his breath.

"What's the Rift doing?" Jack asked, shifting over so Marian could kneel at her son's side.

"I'm registering a substantial temporal quake at the moment, but I can't tell what the damage is," Tosh said, her headset also transmitting the sounds of her typing. "How's Ianto?"

"Unconscious," Owen said flatly.

"Guys," Gwen's voice came over the headsets. "The Weevils are going completely mad," she reported.

"Can you get a bit more specific?" Jack asked, rising from aside Ianto and moving behind Tosh to look over her shoulder at the monitors, one of which she flipped over to the CCTV in the cells.

"They're throwing themselves against the walls, keening, when they're not attempting to strangle themselves or bash their heads against the doors," Gwen said tightly, and Jack watched her take an involuntary step back as Janet threw herself against the door.

"Any idea how long this is going to last?" Jack asked Tosh.

"Only based on the previous pattern, which was in increase from thirty seconds to a minute. But we've passed the two minute mark." She looked at Jack with wide eyes behind her glasses.

"Gwen, use the tranquilizer gun and sedate the Weevils," Jack ordered. "I've never seen them behave that way before, and I don't know what they're capable of."

But he was too late. He watched on the monitor as Janet managed to crash through the reinforced glass door of her cell. Gwen screamed and ran for the stairs.

"Shit." Jack sprinted off for the access stairs, ordering Tosh to lock down the hub as he went, grabbing his gun from his belt. The lights around him changed to the orange-red glow of the lockdown lights (he'd always pressed for mauve).

He slid down the stairs, seeing Gwen at the bottom kicking at Janet. Legs outstretched, Jack's feet planted in the Weevil's forehead, sending her reeling backwards. "Go, Gwen!" He yelled at her, not looking back to see if she scrambled up the stairs. He fired off a shot into Janet's shoulder, the additional noise causing the other two Weevils in their cells to screech louder.

"Tosh, flood the cells with the knockout gas!" Jack ordered, firing off another shot and backing toward the stairs as Janet went limp against the wall. She wasn't unconscious, just playing possum. It was a trick they'd seen from Weevils on the hunt. He made his way up the stairs backwards as fast as he could, hearing the faint hiss of the sedative being released through the ventilation system. At the top of the stairs, he slammed the door shut, sealing off the room.

He ran back to Tosh's station, passing Owen tending to Gwen just to the side of the door he'd sealed, and watched the Weevils curl up and go quiet under the sedative. "Gwen, you alright?" he called.

"Think so," she answered weakly. "I'll let you know for sure when I stop shaking."

'Ghosts' were still drifting through the hub. "Tosh, how we doing with the Rift?"

"I don't know, Jack." Tosh shook her head. "But I think Ianto was right and the Rift is fracturing. I don't know how it's going to go, but look at these readings." She pointed, and he saw lines overlapping.

"Multiple Rifts?" he asked.

"I'm not sure if they're full Rifts or just chunks split off the main focal point above us," Tosh explained. "And I have no idea where exactly they are, I just know they're out there somewhere. I just wish London would shut off this shift."

"How long?" he rubbed at the back of her neck gently.

"We're about to hit the five minute mark," she said quietly.

"Did someone fall asleep at the switch?" Jack asked bitterly. They watched the clock ticking away. When it ticked over to five minutes, the 'ghosts' shimmered out of existence and Jack practically felt the Rift itself heave a sigh of relief.

They simply sat for a moment, adrenaline wearing off. "Tosh, see what you can make of those readings. Gwen, I need you to keep on top of the police feeds. I think we may be responding to a lot of calls tonight. Owen-"

A groan and a curse cut him off. "Okay," Ianto said hoarsely. "Physical contact with a 'ghost' is not advisable."

"You okay?" Jack asked.

"I'm not sure yet," Ianto admitted. "I'll let you know when it stops hurting."

"Oh, you big baby," Owen said. "It was just a mild electrical shock, I don't know what you're complaining about."

Jack squeezed Tosh's neck gently and stepped away, looking over Ianto's desk where his mom was helping him sit up slowly as Owen examined him gently.

"What did I miss?" Ianto asked.

"Rift fractures, escaping Weevils, the usual," Jack said casually.

"So I should be putting coffee on, then," Ianto said with a smirk, batting away Owen's hands.

"I will put on the coffee," Marian said firmly. "You will do whatever Dr Harper tells you to do, or I will start telling embarrassing stories about your childhood."

Jack laughed at the flush that spread across Ianto's cheeks.

"You're probably fine," Owen declared. "You need to take it easy for a couple of days, which I know you won't do, so I'll settle for you actually getting as close to a full eight hours as possible tonight."

"But-" Ianto started to protest.

"I will drug you if I have to," Owen threatened. "But you will sleep."

"Rift fractures and escaping Weevils and you want me to sleep?" Ianto asked, eyebrow raised.

"He does kind of have a point," Jack said. "We're going to need everyone of us in the next few hours."

"Fine," Owen threw up his hands. "But if you slip into a coma and die, it's so not my fault."

"Oh, quit being a drama queen," Ianto said. "Can I assume that we just came out of the shift and that it's going to take awhile to get everything figured out?" He looked at Jack.

"Yeah," Jack answered, taking Ianto's left hand while Owen took his right and helped him up.

"So I can get a couple hours of rest to appease Owen while everything calms down," Ianto suggested.

Jack could see the weariness written across Ianto's features, knew he had been tired before getting shocked. But he also understood Ianto's need to be a part of the team, to be involved, and saw the determination mingled with pain in the younger man's eyes.

"I'll take that deal," Owen said. "Marian, is your coffee as good as Ianto's?" he asked, taking Ianto's right arm as they maneuvered Ianto to the couch behind Tosh's station.

"Better," she answered with a wink and took herself off to make drinks.

They got Ianto settled on the sofa behind Tosh's station and Owen strode off to check on Gwen again and retrieve some painkillers for Ianto. Alone for the moment, Jack kissed Ianto softly. "That was kind of stupid, you know."

Ianto's mask slipped a little. "Yeah."

"Wanna tell me what you were thinking?"

"'m not sure," Ianto muttered. "It was just there and it didn't seem to react to me. By the time I needed to move out of the way, I couldn't." Ianto's eyes were cloudy with pain.

Jack looked up, seeing Owen returning and kissed Ianto lightly on the lips again. "We'll talk about this later."

Ianto nodded, taking the pills Owen handed him.

"You, sleep," Owen ordered, pointing at Ianto. "Gwen has something she wants you to take a look at, Jack."

"Okay." Jack rose from where he was kneeling by the couch, Ianto already slipping off to sleep. "What's up, Gwen?"

Gwen was still shaking a bit from her close encounter with a Weevil. "We're starting to get odd reports from around the city. One man reported that his wife aged thirty years right in front of him. A woman phoned local police and said she stepped into another world and spent a full year there but only a minute had passed here. I've got almost a dozen reports logged in so far."

"Looks like the Rift broke up into smaller pieces under the strain, and people are encountering those smaller bubbles," Tosh said.

"Okay. " Jack thought for a minute. They needed to get out and respond to those calls, but they needed someone at the hub. Marian clattered around in the kitchen and Jack smiled. "We're going to split up into teams. Gwen, you're with me, Owen and Tosh, take the second Rover. Marian, ready to become a full fledged member of Torchwood?"

When Ianto woke a couple of hours later, sore and stiff and a bit fuzzy around the edges, the hub was quiet. He could hear someone typing and water trickling from the fountain. He stifled a groan as he sat up, rubbing his hands over his face, trying to scrub away the weariness.

"There's fresh coffee and tea in the kitchen, love," his mum said from Tosh's station, not turning around. "Jack phoned in and they're going to be out for a bit longer."

"Oh-kay," Ianto said slowly, feeling like he didn't have everything put back right in his head. He remembered Owen giving him some painkillers after the shift ended, but didn't recall the rest of the team leaving.

"The Rift apparently splintered," his mum explained. "Not completely, but enough so that bubbles of Rift are scattered throughout Cardiff and people are encountering them. They've split off into pairs to look into it."

Ianto glanced at his watch – after midnight. He dragged himself from the couch to Tosh's desk and hugged his mum with one arm and snagged her tea with his other hand. He watched her calculations on the screen for a moment as she worked the numbers, before looking to the other screens she'd called up on the monitors. One was the Rift monitor, thankfully showing everything calm. Another reflected the exterior CCTV footage and a third a series of reports and charts he hadn't seen assembled before.

"What's that?" He asked, nodding toward that last screen.

"I've started pulling together all the information you have gathered on the shifts and the Rift independently to see if there's anything new that jumps out."

"Hm." Ianto studied it for a minute. He knew there was something – but he couldn't put his finger on it. He finished off his mum's half-cold tea and tore his eyes away from the screen to refill it and grab himself a cup of coffee.

He brought hot beverages back down, and left tea with him mum. "I'll be in the Archives," he said. His mum nodded absently, absorbed in her project. He was happy to see her taking to it so easily, but then he'd thought she might.

Ianto's desk was still littered with the stat sheets he'd been studying before dinner. He carefully assembled them into a neat pile and bundled them back into the file folder so he could access his terminal. He started a search algorithm through the inadequate database, reminding himself once again that his primary function was as Archivist and he really needed to finish getting everything in the Archives catalogued and into the database. The computer doing the searching, Ianto shed the long-sleeved shirt he was wearing, kicked off his shoes and padded barefoot to the heavy secured door that lead into the Archives proper.

The heavy door swung open easily after Ianto put in his code and the locks disengaged. He walked past rows of neat shelves and sealed boxes, making his way deeper into the secured space to where the bulk of the uncategorized and unsorted items lay. He had a pretty good grasp of what Torchwood had shifted to the Cardiff Archives, even those items that hadn't been properly seen to. But the Americans had, under one of their more liberal administrations in the last few decades, shipped over crates of copies of documents, files, video and quite possibly some old General's shopping list. Ianto couldn't be sure; he'd barely had a chance to scratch the surface.

Someday he'd find out what London had been about sending the American papers to Cardiff where there was considerably less manpower, where they'd been allowed to languish for ten years.

Ianto stacked up a few boxes and carried them to the nearest sorting table, setting them down in a row with his coffee at his elbow. Again, his passcode allowed him to open the secured boxes and he began the task of sifting through years' worth of accumulated material.

He lost himself in the work, barely aware of time passing or that his coffee mug was full of hot coffee every time he reached for it. He dug through box after box, laying aside anything he thought might somehow relate to the few clues they had from London, anything about discs, or power sources or Rifts. He found a few photos, one of a creature that resembled a pepper pot in front of a large gold sphere, a few of just the sphere. They had no notations, and so Ianto just put them in the relevant: highly possible pile he'd created and moved on.

He shut the lid on the last box with a sigh. And jumped at the pleasantly amused voice behind him.

"You know, if I wasn't your boss and therefore extremely happy with your dedication and research skills," Jack said, "I'd probably be hurt that you hadn't noticed we've been back for hours now, despite the fact I've filled your cup three times."

Ianto glanced at his watch and cursed. It was nearly six in the morning. He'd worked through the night and had a small stack of papers to show for it, none of which he could be certain would actually help.

"Captain, I-" Ianto started.

Jack laughed and wrapped his arms around Ianto from behind. "Don't worry about it," he said.

Ianto arched his neck a bit as Jack's lips pressed against the pulse point in his throat, just below his ear, over the stubble on his jaw and chin and finally to his lips. Ianto kissed back, getting a crick in his neck for the effort, but he decided it was worth it.

Jack broke the kiss, hands sliding from Ianto's shoulders down his chest and Ianto just leaned back in his chair, feeling Jack's breath across his hair, the warmth of his hands. "Find anything helpful?"

Ianto shrugged a little. "Possibly. Hard to tell without any more information from London."

"Hm." Jack seemed to agree. "Come on," he said, tugging lightly at Ianto's arms. "Gwen's gone home to shower, see her fiancé, and bring in breakfast and Owen's threatening to sedate you if you don't take another nap."

"I'm fine," Ianto protested, letting Jack pull him up. But sometime in the last six hours his head had started to pound and his whole body was faintly trembling with fatigue, and he was aware of needing to focus a bit more on making his body obey his commands. When he'd been working it was easy enough to ignore. He went willingly when Jack pulled him into a tight hug.

"You're not fine," Jack said quietly. "You're practically radiating pain and exhaustion at the moment, and Owen's still not sure how you got a shock that size and managed to avoid cardiac arrest. Come upstairs, have breakfast with us and debrief, and then you and Gwen get first rest."

Ianto nodded with a sigh, letting his head rest on the Captain's shoulder. He felt somewhat useless, injured and tired and unable to contribute. It was amazing that in a little over a month in Cardiff he'd been put on 'light duty' more often than his entire five year tenure in London. "How's my mum?"

"Asleep," Jack said.

"Good," Ianto muttered into Jack's shoulder and smothered a yawn.

He felt the rumble of Jack's laughter as his boss held him tight for another moment before releasing him, Jack's right hand sliding down Ianto's left arm and capturing his hand. Hand in hand, Ianto slowly followed Jack, pausing only to lock up the archives.

Ianto all but fell onto the couch again, his body screaming its complaint of being electrocuted and then horribly abused. He pouted when Jack looked at him in fond exasperation.

"I'm going to go find Owen," Jack said, bending to kiss Ianto once again. "Gwen should be back soon."

Ianto nodded, eyes slipping mostly shut as he listened to Jack's footsteps recede. His head fell back against the cushions of the couch, and something on the CCTV monitor caught his eye. Tiredly, he pulled himself up and staggered the few steps to Tosh's desk, leaning heavily on her chair as he flipped through the cameras until he reached the one outside the tourist booth entrance. He panned the camera, finding what had caught his eye. Someone staggering around, approaching and then pounding on the door, before stepping back, as if trying to gauge how to enter.

He forced the camera to zoom in, his clumsy hands causing the camera to bounce and shift, showing blood stains on whomever it was. They were limping badly, left arm pressed against their belly, messenger bag slung over their back. Ianto finally got the camera to do what he wanted just as the figure took one more step and collapsed. Cursing, Ianto fumbled with the camera controls again, aligning it with the person now laying in a crumpled heap outside.

He slowly brought the face into focus and was moving toward the hub door before he knew it, all exhaustion and pain forgotten.

"Owen!" he yelled as he ran, fumbling in his trouser pocket for his headset. He slipped it into his ear as he reached the lift and toggled it on. "Owen? Jack?"

_Ianto?_Jack's voice came back.

"Jack, Lisa's outside, she's injured." He threw himself out of the lift, moving as quickly as his body would carry him through the tourist office.

_How badly?_Owen asked.

Ianto skidded to a stop next to Lisa's still form. "She's pretty bruised up," he reported, taking in the black eye and split lip marring her smooth dark skin. "She's bleeding from a wound on her side, but her clothes are covered in spatter. She's unconscious but breathing and," Ianto placed two fingers on her neck. "her pulse is weak."

_We'll be right there_Jack said.

Ianto peeled Lisa's hand away from the wound on her side, finding it still bleeding sluggishly. He hastily stripped out of his t-shirt, folded it quickly and pressed it tightly to the wound that appeared to be a gunshot.

"What the hell happened?" he asked quietly.

"Yvonne's security team," came the hushed and labored response. "I guess she didn't like me poking around. Hi, Ianto."

"Hell of a way to drop in to say hi, Lisa," he teased gently taking her left hand in his left, his right still pressing his shirt to her side.

She squeezed his hand weakly. "Least I found you," she said.

"What happened?" Ianto asked as Jack and Owen burst through the door, Owen with a med-kit in hand. Jack came and stood behind him, draping the Air Force great coat over Ianto's bare shoulders. Owen knelt down opposite Ianto and began to pull stuff from his kit.

"I found some information I thought you would need," Lisa started to explain. "Yvonne or someone must have been watching because I barely made it out of the Tower." She hissed in pain as Owen did something Ianto couldn't see.

"I left London early yesterday, now," Lisa said softly. "Before lunch, I think. I had to be careful getting out of the city so I wasn't followed. When I reached Cardiff, I tried your mum's but it didn't look like anyone had been there in a couple of days. I couldn't remember where the hub was exactly, just the tourist information booth near the Millennium Center, so I waited until early this morning, but no one seemed to be around." She coughed lightly.

"Bit of an emergency here tonight," Ianto said, squeezing her hand gently.

"We need to get her inside," Owen said. "Jack?"

"Yeah," Jack said from behind Ianto. Ianto felt his hands on his shoulders briefly, and then Jack was moving around to Lisa's other side, lifting her gently, as if she weighed nothing at all. Ianto released the hand he was holding as she was moved.

Owen looked at Ianto critically as he gathered up his kit to follow Jack down to their autopsy room that doubled as an infirmary or operating theatre as needed. "You okay, mate?"

Ianto had stiffened up again, fading adrenaline on top of his already protesting body. But he could probably make it into the hub on his own, so long as Owen helped him get moving. "Yeah. Just give me a hand up," he said, holding his bloodstained hands out for Owen to pull him up. He staggered a bit, feeling Owen's hand slide up to his elbow to hold him steady.

"Fuck, but you're a stubborn bastard," Owen swore.

"Ianto?" Gwen appeared, looking fresh faced and ready to face the day in clean clothes and a couple of bags in her hand. "You don't look good."

"He's not," Owen said simply. "Can you get him into the hub? I've got to see to Lisa."

"Lisa?" Gwen asked. "Yeah, I'll manage. Where'd Lisa come from?" She asked Ianto as she wrapped her free arm around his waist and they slowly made their way into the reception area.

"London," Ianto said with a tired smirk.

"Oi, you." She thwacked him lightly.

"She just turned up, injured, and with information," Ianto explained.

"Is that what happened to your shirt?"

"Oh. Yeah." Ianto looked down - he'd almost forgotten that he was wearing Jack's coat over nothing.

"Here," Gwen said, delivering him back to the couch. She sat with him, settling her packages on the floor and curling up against his side. She probably hadn't had time for a nap when she'd gone home, Ianto realized, draping an arm around her shoulders. Ignoring the blood on his hands for the moment, and the almost overwhelming urge to watch from the landing over the autopsy room, Ianto let Gwen's soft, warm presence ease the dull ache in his side and found himself slowly lulled to sleep, the scent of Jack wrapped around him.

Jack assisted Owen as the physician removed the bullet from Lisa's side, bound her sprained ankle, and spread salve on the cuts and bruises. Normally Tosh would have been the one to help Owen with medical procedures, but Jack hated to wake her before he needed to.

They left Lisa to sleep off the sedative after dressing her in a spare set of surgical scrubs (for lack of anything else). Jack gathered up the message bag she had been toting while Owen set the monitors to alert him if anything changed, before taking himself off for a nap. He paused in the main hub, on his way to the conference room, and found himself staring at Ianto.

Ianto's face had smoothed out in sleep, head tipped back against the back of the couch, exposing his throat. He'd draped one arm over Gwen who was rested against him, and Jack's coat had shifted under her weight, revealing a large expanse of Ianto's bare chest and belly, the shiny scars of the Weevil attack three weeks previous standing out against the pale skin. His long legs were stretched out in front of him and Jack hadn't noticed that Ianto had been wandering around in just his white socks, the bottoms of which were black from treading the floors of the hub and the ground outside the tourist shop. Jack watched as his fingers twitched slightly and Ianto's breathing changed and he stirred a little, eyes fluttering open as he lifted his head from the back of the couch.

"Shh," Jack cautioned before Ianto could speak, nodding at Gwen curled up against his side.

Ianto looked down and smiled fondly before easing his way out from under her. Jack watched as Ianto shrugged out of his coat and draped it over Gwen as she automatically curled up in the space he'd left. He bent stiffly to retrieve the bags of groceries Gwen had brought back to the hub with her. He stood, rolling his shoulders and neck as if trying to ease the tension and fatigue.

Jack stared openly at the play of muscles under skin, faintly concerned at nearly being able to see Ianto's ribs, though the man looked toned, not emaciated. His trousers fit just right, sitting on his hips, a faint smattering of dark hair showing above the waistband. Eyes still sleepy, hair disheveled and half-undressed Ianto looked as if he'd just stepped out of someone's bedroom, and Jack resisted the urge to drop everything and haul him downstairs to one.

"I believe, sir," Ianto said quietly with a small smile. "That staring wantonly at your half-naked colleagues could be construed as harassment."

"You just wait, Ianto Jones," Jack fairly growled, reaching out with one hand and pulling Ianto to him. "I'll show you harassment one of these days." He kissed him.

"Promises, promises," Ianto sighed.

Jack pulled away slightly and looked at Ianto. He was fairly sure they were moving that way, but he'd been patient with Ianto, not wanting to rush anything, and though Ianto had seemed receptive, he hadn't actually made any overt overtures or comments. Jack had been willing to bide his time, content with being affectionate and getting to know the younger man better.

"When this crisis is over," Jack said quietly serious. "I think we deserve a long weekend. You." He punctuated with a kiss, "me," again "maybe a beach."

"Sounds perfect," Ianto said. "I know I haven't –"

Jack cut him off with another kiss. "It's okay."

Ianto just nodded. "Are those Lisa's things?" he asked, nodding toward the messenger bag.

"Yeah. I was heading for the conference room to go through them."

"Let me put on some coffee, grab a shirt, and my papers from the Archives," Ianto said. "We can get a head start before the others get up."

Jack nodded. He almost added that Ianto should see Owen for pain killers as well, but figured that by this point, if Ianto wanted to tough it out, he was going to let him. He just hoped the younger man knew his limits and would ask for help when he needed it. "I'll be upstairs."

Ianto staggered off towards the locker room where they all kept a change of clothes and Jack took himself up to the conference room. He took his usual seat at the head of the table and carefully extracted the contents of the bag.

Three file folders, a cd and a memory stick comprised all of the information Lisa had smuggled out of the London offices.

Rather than dig out one of the spare laptops, Jack started with the paper files, finding high quality photos of the disc, reports from the scientists involved in the project and memos from Yvonne. He skimmed several pages, trying to get a quick handle on just what Yvonne was up to. From what he could see, it was no wonder Yvonne didn't want to risk a leak.

They had pulled the disc from the void, and not only were they trying to adapt the power the disc emitted as a viable power source, they were trying to open it, and figure out how to access the void itself.

"What's Yvonne's background?" Jack asked Ianto as he appeared with coffee and the pastries that Gwen had bought.

"Professionally or personally?" Ianto handed Jack his cup, and Jack noticed he'd scrubbed his hands clean.

"I'm more interested in her professional background at this point," Jack said. "Though sometime in the future," he trailed off, winking.

"She's got a background in International Relations and Diplomacy, having studied at Oxford and Georgetown in the States," Ianto recited. "She worked in the Prime Minister's office before being recruited by Torchwood. Yvonne started out in the admin pool, coordinating with UNIT and the various field teams that London was operating at the time. She spent a short time heading up Torchwood House in Scotland, overseeing some training operations before being brought back to London as the third-in-command of Torchwood 1, where she rose fairly rapidly due to the untimely demise of both the directors ahead of her."

"So," Jack said, "no scientific background, then?"

Ianto shook his head. "Not so far as I know."

"It's very possible then that she has no real clue what's going on with this whole experiment," Jack mused.

"Or she's surrounded herself with people who think like she does," Ianto said. "If they're as determined as she is to make it work, they can 'adjust' the reports to reflect a reduced danger, or to give her what they know she wants."

"According to this," Jack said, sliding over a few documents and photos, "they're trying to figure out a way to open the void and siphon energy from it." He sat back, reaching for his coffee.

"I've seen this before," Ianto said softly, looking at the photos. Jack watched as he reached for his own stack of papers retrieved from the Archives. "Only smaller. They found something inside."

Ianto seemed to be talking to himself as he flipped through his folder. "Where, where," he muttered.

Jack cleared his throat gently, and Ianto looked up, a bit sheepish.

"The Americans found something," Ianto explained, flipping through his stack. "Back in the '60s. They managed to open it and there was some kind of creature inside. A bunch of people died before they could contain it and -ah." Ianto held up a few pages, triumphant. He handed them over to Jack.

The first page was a report that he skimmed. The second was a photo of the disc, smaller than the one currently in London. The last was a picture of something Jack had hoped he'd never have to see again.

"Get everyone up," he said quietly, not taking his eyes from the photo. "This was the only one they released?"

"Yes, sir," Ianto said, suddenly the picture of formality. "Just the one inside."

"And it was a smaller disc?"

"About a quarter the size," Ianto confirmed. "I'll go get the others," he said gently, and Jack could hear the confusion in his voice.

Somehow, the Americans had managed to release a Dalek from its ship and word had never been made 'public' within Torchwood. Or at least to Jack, who had been working out of the original Torchwood House in Scotland in the '60s. He took a closer look at the report Ianto had unearthed.

It was fairly vague, written by a couple of survivors who hadn't been especially close to the project. From what they had understood, the Dalek hadn't been functioning when they'd finally gotten the disc opened, and the crew working on the project hadn't had any success in getting it to do anything until someone had accidentally touched it without protective clothing. From there, the Dalek had been restored, the survivors reported from conversations throughout the base, that it had absorbed the new DNA source of the person who had touched it and used that to reinitialize, to hack into a power source and bring itself back up to full functionality. It had rampaged through the base, killing nearly five hundred people before making its way outside and apparently self-destructing.

What the report didn't tell Jack was where the ship had come from or what the Dalek's purpose had been. He could only assume it was a ship that had managed to fall through time from the war he had fought with the Doctor and Rose, and that it had self destructed on finding itself alone.

"Everyone's on their way up," Ianto said quietly, breaking into Jack's thoughts. "Jack, what's going on?"

He felt Ianto's hand on the back of his neck, fingers idly toying with the hair along the nape of his neck. "Things have just got a bit worse," Jack said, even as he relaxed fractionally under Ianto's touch. "Remember that war I told you about?"

Ianto made an affirmative sounding noise.

"This was the enemy we faced," Jack said quietly. "Thousands of them, descending on Earth and the station, determined to wipe out humanity." He found himself lost in memories, the fear that Rose had been killed, only to be replaced by overwhelming joy to find her alive, if captive by the Emperor. The sense of helplessness as he and the Doctor knew there was little to no chance of defeating the Daleks without taking out humanity at the same time, the echoing screams of men and women as they were exterminated, the flat resounding cry of the Daleks declaring "Exterminate! Exterminate!" The smell of ozone and ash, his own screams to "Lynda with a 'y'" after she'd flatly said they'd found her. The pain of death and resurrection, the despair at being left behind.

Distantly, he heard Ianto's voice, felt himself being moved, gentle hands on his face, his back, whispered words. It took a long moment to surface from the pool of memories threatening to drown him, finding Ianto knelt between his legs, talking softly, elegant fingers wiping tears from Jack's face.

"There you are," Ianto said softly with a small smile. "Okay?"

Jack took a shuddering breath. He hadn't been overwhelmed by his memories like that in decades. He caught one of Ianto's hands and kissed his knuckles. "Yeah. Thank you." He took another deep breath, finding a center balance again, realizing it had been a couple days since he'd rested. "Where's everyone?"

"Mum's taking individual coffee orders," Ianto said with a wink.

Jack wasn't concerned about his team seeing him like that, but he was grateful for Marian's tact nonetheless. Ianto leaned up and kissed him quickly, pulling away and standing as the rest of his team trouped in and took their regular seats around the table.

"Sorry to wake everyone up," Jack said. "But we've got some news, and things have gotten just a little bit worse." He tossed the images from the Archives into the middle of the table. "Those are from the Americans. They recovered a ship in the mid 1960s and succeeded in getting it open. The disc that London has in their possession seems to match the Americans' in chemical composition and energy signature, in every way but in size.

"Which brings me to the bad news. Inside the ship the Americans succeeded in opening was a lone Dalek, which managed to kill over five hundred base personnel before it self-destructed. Ianto, is there any information in our database about Daleks?"

"Just that they are a known enemy of the Doctor and not to be engaged. But to my recollection, there is no description of them, so I'm not sure how they're to be avoided if we don't know what they look like." Ianto shrugged. "Classified as extremely dangerous."

"And they are," Jack said. "The Americans only encountered one, and had a ninety percent casualty rate. I suspect that the ship that Yvonne is holding will contain several more Daleks, and who knows what else with their technology."

"So, what's the plan?" Owen asked.

"I think our first priority has to be the Rift," Jack said. "If the 'ghost shifts' continue, there is a very real possibility that the Rift will fracture completely. And if we're right about the alternate universe theory, then Tosh may have been on to something when she suggested that the parallel world London is trying to tap into has a similar Rift. That means the threat of the Rift fracturing at this point could destroy two worlds instead of one. And I think the chances of London succeeding in getting the ship open are less than the Rift fracturing at this point. Marian, Tosh, I want you guys to skip the idea for the Rift monitor and instead see if you can figure out some way to keep the Rift from fracturing. I know it's a huge task, but you two are our best chance."

"What can I do?" Gwen asked.

"Stay on the police feeds," Jack said. "I need to catch a couple hours sleep, so I'm leaving you in charge for the next, say, three hours. Don't hesitate to wake me if you run into a problem."

"You," Owen pointed at Ianto. "Are also going down for a couple of hours. It's going to be a couple hours before the girls need your help anyway, and you can't possibly look me in the eye and tell me that you're feeling alright."

Ianto nodded.

"Okay," Jack said. "Everything we've gotten from London is here." Jack waved over the pile of paperwork. "As well as everything Ianto pulled from the Archives that might be useful."

"Where'd we get this, Jack?" Tosh said, reaching for the cd and memory stick and her laptop.

"I brought it," a soft voice came from the doorway.

Owen was up before Lisa had finished speaking, helping her to a chair.

"Lisa Hallet," Ianto said. "Torchwood 3. Toshiko Sato, Gwen Cooper, and you've met my mum, Dr. Harper, and Captain Jack Harkness."

"There's something else you need to know, Captain," Lisa said softly as Owen quickly checked over her injuries. "something not in those papers. Sometime in the next 24 hours, Yvonne is going to hold the 'ghost shift' as long as it takes in an attempt to access the disc."

"Oh, shit," Owen swore.

"Any idea when, Lisa?" Ianto asked.

She shook her head. "All I know is that Yvonne's getting frustrated and she's ready to listen to her advisors telling her to do whatever it takes."

"Okay," Jack said. "Thank you, Lisa. Do you feel up to helping out?"

"Whatever I can, though I'm just an accountant," she said with a smile.

"You can give me a hand," Gwen said. "I can use a second set of eyes on the police feeds from the last twenty-four hours."

"Sure," Lisa said with a nod.

"Alright. Everyone knows what they're doing. I'll be back up in a few hours." Jack rose from the table, Marian already shifting closer to Tosh and Gwen moving around to confer with Lisa. "Don't hesitate to wake me," he said again. "Especially if the 'ghost shift' starts." He knew he needed to take the time to get some rest while he could, even though he didn't like the idea of taking a break during what amounted to a crisis. But if he didn't, he wouldn't be good for much once the shit truly started to hit the fan.

"We will," Gwen promised.

Jack left the conference room, Ianto staggering along behind him, but when Jack moved toward his office and the portal to his room, Ianto went the other direction, toward the dorms.

"Ianto," Jack called. "Where the hell do you think you're going?"

"Bed?" Ianto answered, confused.

Jack held out a hand and Ianto limped back to him. "I didn't want to presume," Ianto said softly.

"Come on," Jack said, tugging on his hand. He led Ianto into his office and took the ladder down first, just in case Ianto slipped. He didn't bother with lights, guiding Ianto through the space he knew so well until they reached the bed.

He slowly stripped Ianto of his shirt and trousers before gently pressing him onto the bed. He knelt and stripped off Ianto's dirty socks, taking the time while he was down there to untie his heavy boots and kicked them off when he rose again.

"Come here," Ianto said softly, sitting on the edge of the bed in his boxers. Jack stepped up between his legs and let Ianto fumble with the buttons on his blue shirt, slide braces down till they hung around his hips and unfastened his belt and trousers. Jack shrugged out of his shirt and pulled off his undershirt, letting his trousers fall and pool around his ankles. He stepped out of them and toed off his socks before climbing onto the bed in his briefs next to Ianto.

Jack thought they arranged themselves remarkably easily for two men who hadn't yet shared that level of intimacy. Ianto's back was pressed to Jack's front, their left hands twined together over Ianto's taught stomach. Ianto was asleep almost instantly, and Jack found himself nuzzling the soft skin behind Ianto's ear as he settled into his own rest, the descent into meditation made easier by the warm body in his arms.


	7. Chapter 7: Loss and London and Epilogue

Chapter 4: Loss and London

Someone was shaking his shoulder, whispering his name quietly, trying to get him to wake up. Ianto batted away the hand, turning and burying his head back into the warm wall of flesh he was pressed against. His head ached and he just wanted to drop back off to sleep, but the firm chest under his ear rumbled with quiet laughter, waking him further. Gentle fingers carded through his hair, soft words drifting over him. "Tosh," and "wake him," and "up soon."

He heard softer, more feminine laughter behind him as he tried to burrow deeper into the warmth against him.

"Never had you for the clingy type."

"'m not clingy," Ianto protested, voice still thick with sleep and not opening his eyes. "Jus' wanna sleep."

"Apparently, not a morning person, either." Jack shifted and Ianto found himself gently, sweetly kissed. "Good morning," Jack whispered.

Oh, he'd missed that. Waking up with someone, horrible morning-breath kisses, gentle teasing on his reluctance to face the world. He hadn't had that comfort since Russ, and oddly, Ianto realized, he didn't feel guilty about it all.

He blinked his eyes open, meeting Jack's amused gaze. He kissed Jack. "Morning," he said softly.

"We're going to have to do this more often, you realize," Jack said, smiling. "Your accent is adorable when you've just woken up."

Ianto just kissed him again. "How long was I out?"

"Just a few hours," Jack said. "But Tosh got the early alert that the next shift will be starting up soon."

No wonder he still felt ragged out, if he'd only slept for a few hours. He gently disentangled himself from Jack, sitting up with a groan. His body still ached, an unpleasant counterpoint to the throbbing in his temples.

"There'd better be coffee," he grumbled, pulling himself up and rummaging around Jack's rooms for his clothes. He found his trousers and stepped into them, wrinkling his nose a bit. He had fresh pants, trousers and a couple of shirts in his locker. He'd learned his lesson on keeping spare clothing at the hub. He scrubbed a hand over his face, dragging his fingers through his hair, turning to look at Jack. "How long?" he punctuated the sentence with a yawn.

"Half an hour or so." Jack said absently. "You know," he mused. "There's room in my shower for two."

Ianto crossed back to where Jack still lay on the bed, stretched out, his toned body bare but for his briefs, looking utterly comfortable as he was. He knelt on the bed and kissed Jack softly. "Any other day," he said softly. "There's no time, and I'm exhausted," he admitted. "When this is over," he promised softly. "And I've had some sleep," he said with a smile. "I will show you just how completely and utterly I fancy you, Jack." He kissed Jack again, cupping the lightly stubbled chin in his hands.

One of Jack's hands came to rest against Ianto's chest, sliding over his heart. Ianto let one of his hands fall away from Jack's face and covered the hand over his heart. Ianto broke the kiss, pulling away slowly, keeping his eyes locked on Jack's.

"You are completely gorgeous," Jack said quietly. He sat up quickly and kissed Ianto firmly. "Get something to eat, please," Jack murmured against his lips. "Don't think I hadn't noticed you barely touched your sandwich last night, and there wasn't time for breakfast this morning."

"Yes, sir," Ianto whispered.

"Cheeky."

"You love it," Ianto said, pulling away to the soft sound of Jack's laughter. Barefoot, he climbed the ladder, trying to remember where he'd left his shoes and whether or not there were a spare pair in his locker.  
>He crossed the hub, catching a glimpse of his mum ascending from the autopsy bay, Owen following behind.<p>

"Mum? Everything okay?" She looked tired, but otherwise happy.

"Everything's fine, love," she said. "Just a bit of pain in my arm that Dr Harper was kind enough to look at."

Ianto looked to Owen who was standing by with an agreeable expression.

"Alright." He smiled at her. He worried, was all. Something was still telling him that she wasn't being completely honest, but he quite honestly had bigger things to worry about. " I need a shower."

"I'll get some coffee started and see if there's any of Gwen's pastries left," his mum responded. "Will the Captain be up soon?"

Ianto did not blush at the implications of his mum knowing that he'd spent the last few hours sleeping with his boss. "Yes." He turned to Owen. "I sort of hate to ask, but what can you give me for the nagging headache?"

"I'll have something for you when you get back," Owen said, looking him over critically. "How do you feel otherwise?"

"Like I've been run over by a truck," he said honestly. "But more steady on my feet than I was."

"I should stick you under the scanner," Owen muttered. He wandered off shaking his head.

Ianto took himself off to the showers and got himself cleaned up and feeling as human as possible in a short amount of time. He did find a spare set of trainers in the back of his locker and tugged them on, completing his ensemble of jeans, long sleeved cotton tee-shirt and jumper.

Owen pressed a bottle of juice and a couple of pills into his palm when Ianto emerged from the locker room, giving him a quick once over with a small torch shining into his eyes.

"You're going off duty for a week when we get this mess straightened out," Owen ordered. "Here," he said, handing Ianto another two pills. "They'll help with the nausea and you need to eat something. It will probably help with the headache, too."

Ianto nodded and took the pills.

"Tosh wants to do a quick debrief before the next shift, which should be in about fifteen minutes," Jack said, emerging from around the corner. "Everything okay?"

"We're good, boss," Owen answered.

"Let's go then. Gwen's got breakfast."

Ianto followed Jack and Owen into the conference room. A bowl of fruit had materialized on the table, nearly buried under a mountain of papers generated by his mum and Tosh. His mum slid a cup of coffee over to him and Gwen handed him a plate.

His mum and Tosh had managed to piece together a kind of oscillating pulse that would, hopefully, counteract the frequency of the 'ghost shift' and keep the Rift from fracturing. Apparently, the scan he'd run during the last shift had identified a particular pulse frequency that Tosh was able to counter.

Ianto listened as Tosh outlined what they had managed to cobble together, picking at the pastry Gwen had given him.

"We scavenged a few transmitters and programmed them to emit a signal that cancels out the one Ianto identified during the last shift," Tosh said. "I just don't know if the signal is going to be powerful enough."

"We'll find out soon enough," Jack said as the warning alarm sounded. "I'll take the transmitter up."

They all moved to their various stations. Owen took up observation of the Weevils, Gwen and Lisa pulling up the local police monitors while Jack carried the transmitter to the invisible lift up to the Plass.

Ianto hooked on his earpiece and toggled into the network as the others did the same.

_Weevils are already getting restless_ Owen reported.

Ianto glanced at his own screen, the same pattern from the day before starting to emerge.

_Ghost shift starting in three, two, one_ Tosh counted down wearily.

_Transmitting_ Jack reported from outside. _Anything?_

_No, not yet,_ Tosh said over the radios from her desk. _Readings are consistent with previous 'shifts'_.

"Do we need to boost the signal?" Ianto asked.

_It's already at maximum_ his mum answered, looking back over her shoulder at him from Tosh's desk.

_Start thinking of alternatives,_ Jack said. _How long until the Rift starts to fracture?_

_It started to fracture around four minutes_ Tosh reported. _We've got about three minutes_

Ianto could see both wave forms on his monitor, showing both the activity of the Rift and the signal from the transmitter. "What about opening the Rift?" Ianto asked suddenly, a flash of inspiration. If they couldn't boost the signal of the transmitter, then perhaps they could make the Rift more receptive to the transmission.

_Ianto?_ Jack asked.

_Is it going to be steady enough for that?_ his mum asked.

_Possibly,_ Tosh mused. _If we don't have to hold it open for long - yes, using the Rift Manipulator to open the Rift may allow more of the transmission to get through_.

_Do it_ Jack ordered. _Owen, Tosh, you have primary codes, but without my retinal scan, Ianto will need to put in the manual override_.

Owen and Tosh were already moving to Jack's office. "We're on it, Jack." He followed them, finding them already accessing the recessed panel in the wall where the Rift controls were hidden. They each stood for their scan, moving aside so Ianto could see the screen.

CAPT. HARKNESS RETINAL SCAN OR OVERRIDE_

Ianto typed the 13-digit code he'd been told to memorize on his first day in Cardiff.

CODE ACCEPTED_

The lights in the hub shifted from the regular overhead fluorescents to a bright yellow glow as the alarms and automated warning announcement sounded.

WARNING. RIFT OPENING. WARNING. RIFT OPENING.

"It's open, Jack," Ianto said, Tosh running past him to get back to her desk.

_Still no change_ Tosh said, a worried note creeping into her voice. _The Rift is going to start to fracture in just over a minute_

"Where is the Rift the strongest?" Ianto asked. "Where does the Doctor park when he comes to refuel?"

_Up against the fountain_ Jack replied. _Why?_

"Do we need to get closer?"

_The Rift is starting to fracture!_ Tosh announced. _I think opening it made it more unstable_

_How about walking it into one of the bubbles?_ his mum asked softly.

_I'm not about to order anyone on what count amount to a suicide mission_ Jack said flatly. _Other options?_

_I'm volunteering, Captain_.

Ianto raced from Jack's office and the shut-down command for the Manipulator. What the hell was his mother thinking?

_We don't even know that it would work_ Tosh was saying as Ianto drew near enough to hear her without his headset. "There's no way of knowing if the bubbles are tied back to the Rift at all."

"How about putting the transmitter in the SUV and setting the auto-pilot to drive to the fountain," Gwen suggested, looking between Ianto and Marian with wide eyes.

"Broken," Ianto said. "I haven't had a chance to look at it."

"Chuck the transmitter into the Rift and hope it connects?" Owen offered with a shrug. "We don't have any way of actually pinpointing an open point in the Rift so -"

"Actually," Tosh interrupted. "With the Rift open with the Manipulator," she said, typing furiously at her keyboard. "We can."

Ianto watched her monitor as a bright red spot appeared on the map of Cardiff. "There. That's the centre of the Rift," Tosh said.

_Alright. How do we get the transmitter there?_ Jack asked, still outside.

"I'll take it," Ianto's mum said quietly.

_I can't let you do that, Marian_ Jack said.

"Can we strap it to a weevil?" Gwen asked.

"To dangerous," Owen answered. "It could run off before it gets there, attack someone."

_Ianto, do we have anything automated in the Archives?_

"No, and I think building a robot may be out of even Tosh's league at this point," he said sarcastically.

"I can do it," his mum said again.

"Mum, no." Ianto said, reaching for her arm. "You don't need to do this," he said softly, urgently.

"There's no other way, love," she said gently. "We all know that."

"That doesn't mean you have to go," Ianto protested.

"Who else is going to go, Ianto? You've all got so much promise and life left to live," she said with a sad smile.

"What aren't you telling me, mum?" he pleaded quietly.

"The cancer spread," she answered after a moment. "Dr Harper confirmed it a couple of days ago."

"No," he breathed. He looked to Owen who confirmed it with a small nod. "There are treatments,"

"I'm past that point now," she said. "This soon after chemo." She stopped, shook her head. "No, love. I'll not prolong it. Let me do this," she urged. "Let me save the world one more time, let me go out on my own terms, not wasting away."

"You're all I have left, mum," he said quietly.

"No, love." He felt her hands on his face, wiping away tears he wasn't aware he'd shed. "You have this wonderful team who care about you. You have your sister and your brother, if you'd only try to reach out to them." She kissed his cheek. "You have Jack."

"We're getting reports in from all over the city," Lisa said quietly. "Rift bubbles. Twice as many as yesterday."

"I need to do this, Ianto." She squeezed his hands gently. Ianto heard the invisible lift in the background. "I love you. I'm proud of you."

"Oh, god. I love you, too, mum." He pulled her into a tight hug. He didn't want to let her go, even though he knew it was the only way. There wasn't enough time for anything else.

She pulled away first, turning to Gwen who had stepped up next to Ianto. His mum gave her a quick hug before crossing the hub to where Jack waited on the lift, transmitter at his feet. Ianto felt Gwen's arm snake around his waist, and he leaned against her, watching the lift ascend.

_You're sure about this, Marian?_ Ianto heard Jack ask over the radios.

_I'm sure. Take care of my boy, Jack._

_I will. I promise._

"Tosh-" Ianto said shakily, and she was already calling up the CCTV footage of the Plass. Gwen's arm tightened around his waist as they watched his mum cross the Plass, toting the transmitter with her. He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned slightly, Owen's sympathetic face just behind him. Tosh reached back and he clutched at her hand as they all stared at the monitors.

_You are all fantastic_ his mum's voice came over the radio just before Ianto heard the click of the disconnection. She walked up to the fountain and disappeared in a flash of light.

_Tosh?_

"Uh-"

Ianto squeezed her hand and let her go. She turned and started typing again.

"Rift is stabilizing. We need to close the manipulator."

"I've got it," Ianto said, stepping away from Gwen and Owen and heading shakily back up the stairs to Jack's office. He punched the code back into the panel and the low warning voice stopped mid-warning and the lights in the hub changed back.

_Rift is closed and appears stable_ Tosh reported as Ianto slid slowly to the floor. _I'll keep monitoring_

_It looks like the Weevils have calmed as well_ Owen said. _They must have been responding to the frequency of the Rift breach_

He slipped his earpiece out as the others reported in the various states of the Rift and the 'ghost shift' and rested his head on his knees, needing a moment of quiet.

**  
><em>Rift is closed and appears stable<em> Tosh reported. _I'll keep monitoring_

Jack stared at the fountain where Marian had disappeared in a flash of light into the Rift.

_It looks like the Weevils have calmed as well_ Owen said. _They must have been responding to the frequency of the Rift breach_

He toggled his headset, clicking over to a private channel. "Ianto?" A steady beep sounded in his ear - Ianto had disconnected. He clicked back over. "Gwen, do you have Ianto?"

_He's in your office, Jack_ Gwen said gently. _He's just sitting there_

"I'm on my way down." He looked out over the Plass for another moment, half expecting to see Marian emerge from the other side of the fountain. She didn't appear. He took the invisible lift back down into the hub, leaping off before it reached the ground level and cycled back up.

"Lisa, do you have anyone in London you can trust?" He asked as he strode through the hub.

"I think so, Captain."

"Good. See if you can reach them and try to find out what's going on up there." He looked around and took in the faces of his team. They all looked slightly heartbroken, yet determined to get on with the task at hand. "Great work, guys. We've still got a way to go. Tosh -"

"I'll keep an eye on the Rift, but we should be okay for now," Tosh said quietly. Owen hovered just behind her, one hand on her shoulder.

Jack nodded and crossed the hub, taking the stairs to his office two at a time. Gwen was waiting just outside the doors, twisting a tissue in her hands. He drew her into a hug. "Give us a couple minutes, okay?"

She nodded. "I'm going to go help Lisa."

Jack found Ianto sat against the wall under the Rift Manipulator controls, knees drawn up tight to his chest, head resting on his knees. He swept his coat to one side and eased himself to the floor next to the younger man, shoulders touching. Jack could feel the slight tremble in the other man's frame and gently tugged Ianto to him, wrapping one arm around his shoulders.

"She's gone," Ianto said quietly into his shoulder.

"Yeah, she is," Jack agreed. "She saved the world, Ianto. Two, if Tosh is right."

"I know."

"And now it's your turn," he said. He hugged Ianto tight again and let him go. "Come on." He stood, tugging on Ianto's hand.

"Jack?" Ianto staggered to his feet, wiping his face with the hand Jack didn't hold.

"I'm going to need you to come with me to London. You know your way around the base better than anyone here, and I'm hoping that between you and Lisa we have contacts enough to get us in." He knew he should give Ianto some time, but they didn't have much, not if whatever Yvonne was mucking with was a Dalek ship.

"Right. Of course."

"Ianto," Jack said quietly as he watched Ianto try to lock down all of his emotions. He drew him into another hug. "I'm sorry. I wish I could give you the time you need."

"I'll be okay," Ianto answered. "'Today we may say aloud before an awe-struck world'," he quoted. "'We are still masters of our fate. We still are captain of our souls.' We still have a world to save." He rested his head on Jack's shoulder for a moment. "I'll be okay," he repeated.

How had he been so fortunate to have this young man land in his life? "Thank you," Jack said softly, pressing his lips to the top of Ianto's head.

"For what?"

Jack didn't get a chance to answer as the hub erupted in a cacophony of noise as the intruder alarms went off.

"What now?" He swore, letting go of Ianto and flinging open the door of his office.

His team (and Lisa) stood armed, surrounding the invisible lift.

"Oi! Some welcome. Rose, I'm beginning to think that Torchwood doesn't like us." A pair of white Chucks attached to brown pinstriped pants next to a denim clad pair of legs entered Jack's field of vision.

"I warned you about using the lift, didn't I?" Jack called out as his team stood down as they recognized the Doctor and Rose. "We're a little jumpy today. You're lucky they didn't shoot you."

"I know," the Doctor answered, jumping from the lift before it reached bottom. "Wait? What? What disaster have you found yourselves in the middle of this time? Or have you caused it? Because -"

"Doctor," Rose said, accepting Owen's hand down off the lift with a smile.

"Oh, yes." He grinned and waved ."Hullo! Now, what have you done to the Rift?"

Jack rolled his eyes and glanced at Ianto, who was staring.

"Ianto Jones, Lisa Halett," Jack introduced. "Meet the Doctor and Rose. Everyone else I think has met."

"Yes, yes," the Doctor said. "Now, what have you done to the Rift?"

"Nice to see you too," Jack said dryly. "We had to open it to keep it from fracturing. Why?"

"Ah." The Doctor stepped up to Tosh's station and pressed a few keys. "What caused it?"

"The 'ghost shift'," Tosh said.

"The wassit?" Rose asked.

"What the world has dubbed 'ghost shifts' is a parallel world phasing into our own," Tosh explained.

"London recovered a Dalek ship," Jack said. "They're trying to get it open, and every time they do, it phases in this shift between realities. It was causing the Rift to fracture and we just got it sealed."

"How'd you manage that, then?" the Doctor asked, slipping his glasses on and peering at Tosh's monitors.

"We identified the frequency that the shift was resonating on and counteracted it with a transmission of a cancelling frequency," Tosh said.

"Must've been a bloody big transmitter," the Doctor commented.

Jack felt Ianto tremble slightly beside him as the hub fell quiet again and the Doctor looked up.

"Or not?"

"I'm going to go make coffee," Ianto said quietly, slipping his earpiece back in.

"I'll help, yeah?" Rose offered.

Jack gave her a grateful smile as he squeezed Ianto's arm lightly and let him go distract himself.

"So Jack," the Doctor said. "What's London up to?"

"Yvonne's trying to harness energy from the void, as nearest we can tell," Jack said. "It's the only explanation for the shift phases."

"Which means she's got her hands on a Dalek void ship," the Doctor mused. "Clever, clever Ms. Hartman."

"Yeah, well," Jack said. "I'm more worried about what happens when she manages to get it open."

"We'll just have to see that she doesn't," the Doctor said definitively.

"Easy for you to say, Doc," Jack muttered.

"Sure it is. We just go to London, find the ship, shove it back through the void, and problem solved!"

"Easy as that?" Jack looked at him skeptically.

"Yup!" The Doctor didn't meet Jack's gaze.

"Uh-huh." Jack grinned. Some things never changed. "Have any idea how you're going to do it?"

"Not yet," he admitted. "Other than getting inside the London complex."

"Ianto knows his way around," Jack said. "He transferred down here a couple of months ago from London."

"Wonderful," the Doctor replied. "Jones, Jones," he mused as he punched away at Tosh's keyboard. "Marian Jones, UNIT engineer?"

"Her son," Jack agreed, unable to keep the sadness from his voice.

"What happened, Jack?"

"The transmitter wasn't big enough," Jack said with a sigh. "We used the Manipulator to open the Rift and increase the chances of the signal going through. It didn't work and the Rift was starting to fracture so she walked the transmitter into the Rift."

"Ah. This was -"

"About ten minutes ago," Jack said, turning at footsteps behind him.

Rose handed him a cup of coffee before giving him a one armed hug. Jack wrapped one arm around her and she leaned into his side, handing off a second cup to the Doctor and retaining a third for herself.

"About when we got that shock, yeah?" Rose asked.

"We must have picked up on the shock wave of the Rift responding to the transmission," the Doctor said. "The TARDIS responded to the energy of the Rift and pulled us here," he explained to Jack. "Rather a good thing she did, I think."

"Jack," Gwen said. "We're getting reports from all over the city. The 'ghosts' are starting to take more solid form."

"Why aren't there any in here?" the Doctor asked.

"Maybe they've learned to stay away from this space?" Tosh asked. "After what happened to Ianto the other day?"

"What happened?" Rose asked as Ianto came around after delivering coffee to everyone else.

"One of the 'ghosts' walked through Ianto. I think it's more likely that with the Rift closed, we're not quite at ground zero anymore," Jack suggested.

"Either way," the Doctor said, "we need to get to London and stop this before the two realities phase completely."

"What happens if they do?" Rose asked.

"Nothing good," Jack answered.

"More like the end of both worlds," the Doctor said casually.

"Oh, good," Rose said with a roll of her eyes. "Business as usual, then."

"Yup! Come on!" the Doctor said cheerfully. He set his cup down and bounded away.

Jack shared a long suffering look with Rose before following. "Ianto? Coming?"

**

"This is the TARDIS?" Ianto asked skeptically as they approached the blue police box parked outside the Tourist Center.

"Yup!" the Doctor answered cheerfully, fitting an old fashioned key into the lock and swinging the door open. "In you go!"

Ianto followed Rose into the TARDIS, pausing just inside to take in the organic-seeming ship that was so much bigger on the inside. The large center console pulsed quietly, the pale blue light almost calming.

"Off we go!" the Doctor bustled around the console, Jack and Rose falling in easily to help him.

The hum from the console increased, turning into a pulsating grind as things began to shake. Ianto scrabbled for purchase, grasping hold of the railing. It stopped a moment later with a thud, throwing the others against the console, but all of them managing to stay upright.

"Right," the Doctor said, spinning a few dials and pulling a lever. "Let's see where we are." He seemed to bounce across the room to the doors. "Ianto?"

Ianto poked his head out the door. "One of the storage bays in the basement," he said quietly. "Unsecured storage bays," he clarified.

"Perfect," Jack said as Ianto ducked back inside and closed the door behind him.

"We're three levels down from the main entrance to the building," Ianto said. "The labs are on the fifth through the tenth level - the one we want is on nine. Lisa said they've tightened security down around all the labs."

"How do we get in?" Rose asked.

"Through the emergency access routes," Ianto answered. "Yvonne probably forgot about them - most of the staff doesn't even remember they're there once they've been through the initial orientation tour."

"But you do?" the Doctor asked curiously.

Ianto shrugged. "My last year here, I uh - didn't have a lot to go home for." He caught Jack's eye and smiled a little. It didn't hurt so much anymore, to think about Russ.

"Doc, just how are you going to get the ship back into the Void?" Jack asked.

"I dunno. S'pose we have to find it first," the Doctor said with a smirk before slipping out the door.

"Is he always like this?" Ianto asked Jack and Rose.

"Pretty much, yeah," Rose answered with a bright grin and followed.

Jack just winked at him. "Come on. World needs saving."

"And me without my tights," Ianto said dryly, following them out the door, then taking up the lead position as they moved quickly and quietly through the largely empty space. He found the concealed stairwell at the back, the narrow hall illuminated by dim yellow emergency lighting. "Hope no-one's claustrophobic," he quipped, and began climbing. He set an easy pace, more for deference of his own aching body than concerns about anyone else keeping up.

They reached the ninth floor in short time. Ianto cracked the door open and peered through. The access hallway was empty and he led them silently through the space, one hand skimming the wall, searching for the hidden door panel that would let them into the lab.

"Here," he said quietly when he found the seam of the door. "Ready?"

He got nods from the other three and triggered the panel, the door sliding silently open and revealing an enourmous lab space. They slipped into the room - everyone's attention was on the golden spheroid object suspended from the ceiling against the opposite wall.

"Well, now," the Doctor said loudly, shoving his hands into his pocket and rocking back on his heels before striding forward. "That's really not something you see every day. Well, okay, you lot see it every day, what with working here and all, but I mean, your average bloke of the street, now that's a different story."

The security goons in the room turned and trained their weapons on them as soon as the Doctor had started speaking. Ianto was unarmed, and he assumed that Rose was as well. He made no assumptions about the Doctor, but he was fairly certain Jack had his pistol in its holster on his right hip.

"You will come with us, Doctor," one of the goons spoke, gesturing with his gun.

"Naw, I don't think so," the Doctor said casually. He continued to move around the room, carefully, hands where they could be seen, Ianto observed, as if unconcerned with the guns aimed at him. He babbled on as he moved, seeming to talk nonsense, but it kept most of the attention focused on him.

Ianto kept one eye on the Doctor as he circled around the room and the other on the various techs and scientists in the room, trying to recognize a familiar face. One of the techs caught his eye and winked. It took Ianto a moment to place him. James, a friend of Lisa's. Ianto nodded slightly, shifting on his feet so his hand 'accidentally' brushed Jack's.

Jack brushed his fingers across Ianto's - he'd apparently got the message. Ianto looked to Rose, who simply looked bored. He guessed she'd done this kind of thing a lot, and had that confirmed when she turned and grinned at him.

"So then," the Doctor said, coming out of his rant. "Which one of you lads wants to tell me how you got this here?"

"We brought it here," a familiar voice rang through the room. Yvonne strode into view, as always dressed in a black business suit, red hair hanging in waves around her face an down her back. "Thanks to some recently acquired technology, we were able to reach out into the Void and drag it back here."

"Why?" Jack asked.

"Ah, Captain Harkness. And Mr Jones. Really, Mr Jones, I had expected more from you." Yvonne all but clucked her tongue at Ianto. "But I guess the stories of Captain Harkness' charms aren't completely exaggerated."

Ianto held his tongue, waiting to see how everything was going to play out. James circled around to the other side of a console, kneeling down out of sight.

Yvonne turned to Rose. "You must be the Doctor's companion. Rose Tyler, isn't it?"

"It is," Rose answered simply.

"Fantastic," Yvonne said, clapping her hands together. "I'm so pleased you're all here for this, to witness our triumph as we unveil the harnessing of a new energy source!"

"Or destroy the world," Jack said dryly. "Yvonne, you've got to stop this. You're not pulling energy from the void, but from a parallel universe, and you're causing them to collide. If you don't stop this, you're going to destroy both."

"Nonsense," Yvonne scoffed. "The 'ghosts' are just residual a residual energy signature connected to the ship from passing through the void."

"Uh huh," Rose said. "Then how come they're startin' to actually look like people?"

_Jack? Ianto?_ Tosh's voice came over their secure channel. Ianto had almost forgotten he was wearing the headset. _I'm starting to get some very strange readings - almost like the Earth's mass is increasing_.

James peered back over the console and nodded slightly at Ianto. Ianto brushed against Jack again.

"It's starting," Jack said quietly. "Yvonne, you've got to stop this shift, now. The two worlds are starting to converge on one point in time and space."

"He - he may be right, Director," one of the techs spoke up, wide eyed. "These readings-"

"Of course he's not right," Yvonne said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "The shift will continue until -"

The lights went out in the lab. Ianto felt Jack move next to him and undo the snaps on his gun holster, but didn't remove the weapon. To his other side, Rose dug into her pockets.

"What's going on?" Yvonne demanded. "Status report!"

"We've lost power," someone called.

"I can see that," Yvonne spat. "What's the status of the shift?"

"Offline."

"I want the power back on and the shift resumed immediately!" Yvonne shouted.

The emergency lights flickered on, revealing the Doctor and James huddled over one of the consoles.

"Doctor," one of the guards ordered. "Step away from the console."

"Yes yes," the Doctor waved a hand behind him. "Just a moment."

"Doctor, I insist," Yvonne said.

"Well, if you insist," the Doctor said, stepping away and brandishing what looked like a torch with a blue light at the end. He pointed it at the console. "Down!" he shouted and hit the deck.

Ianto, Rose, and Jack followed suit immediately as a bright light pulsed through the lab. Bolts of energy flashed through the space, causing everyone to duck away. Ianto looked up and saw a great hole open up in the wall behind the ship. Everything in the room shook as a vortex pulled the ship back into what Ianto could only assume was the void. The lights flickered and died, and papers whirled around the room.

It was over after a minute. The lights slowly spasmed back to life revealing a great scorch mark on the wall where the ship had hung a moment before.

"No," Yvonne breathed.

"Yes!" the Doctor said, pointing his torch thingy at the console again. "The ship's gone back to where it came from, and you will not be able to get it back." The console sparked and hissed and went dark. He crossed the room to join Ianto and the others again.

"I'm afraid I cannot allow you to leave," Yvonne said.

"Yes, I think you can," Jack said, finally drawing his gun and aiming it at Yvonne. "Unless you boys want a new boss, I suggest you lower your weapons."

"Oh, do as he says," Yvonne said, resignedly, and the weapons around the room lowered. "Don't think that this is the end of this, Captain Harkness. Or for you, Mr Jones. I hadn't thought your loyalty so easily traded for a pretty face."

"My loyalty is to Torchwood and Earth, Director," Ianto said quietly. "And Captain Harkness is still Torchwood."

"For now," Yvonne sneered.

"You'll have a hard time getting rid of me so easily, Yvonne," Jack said. "Remember, I've been around a lot longer than you have, and have friends in much higher places."

Yvonne visibly paled.

"The hospitality was somewhat lacking, but I do believe we may have to come back here someday, doncha think, Rose?" The Doctor said as they backed out the access door.

"I think you're mad," Rose said with a shake of her head as the Doctor did something with his torch.

Ianto found himself agreeing with her as they ran back down the twelve flights of stairs to the TARDIS and back to Cardiff. 

Epilogue

It had taken nearly a month to get everything finally stabilized. Yvonne had been removed as the Director of Torchwood, retconned, and given a teaching post at Georgetown University. It had taken some string pulling on Jack's part, but in the end the Prime Minister had believed his reports on how true the threat had been (and Tosh's reports containing the hard evidence hadn't hurt).

Ianto missed most of the drama around the changeover in direction of Turnover, having been firmly placed on medical leave by Owen (who was surprisingly more firm on the 'stay home' than Ianto had thought he would be), and so got second hand news from Jack almost every evening.

It taken two weeks, but they'd held a small memorial service for his mum. Just a small group of her friends and Torchwood, at one of the local pubs. Ianto had refused to have a funeral, on the basis that he wasn't sure she was dead.

"Who knows, Jack," He had explained. "People fall through the Rift all the time. Who's not to say that she's not whole and happy and healthy somewhere else?"

Jack had laughed and kissed him. "You're fantastic," Jack had said.

They'd made love for the first time a few night later, when Jack had followed through on his promise for a long weekend on the beach. Ianto had returned to Cardiff pleasantly sore and aching in many places, and happy. Gwen and Tosh had giggled and Owen had rolled his eyes but clapped him on the back.

So after a month, things were back to as much as normal as passed for it in Torchwood. Gwen's wedding plans climbed to new heights of frenzy as the date grew closer, and Ianto sold his mum's house and found a nice flat not far from the hub. Jack had invited him to live with him in the hub, but Ianto had turned him down, telling him that sometimes, it was nice to get out of the hub for a night.

And then he'd taken him home and shown him nice it could be.


End file.
